


Howard Edward Stark

by HappyIsBlue



Series: Be unbreakable, go highter, further, faster [1]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aromantic, Awesome Carol Danvers, BAMF Peggy Carter, Bad Parenting, F/F, F/M, Female Tony Stark, There's two Howard Stark, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28326711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyIsBlue/pseuds/HappyIsBlue
Summary: Howard Edward Stark was born in May 1960. He's the son of the famous Howard Stark and Maria Stark. This is his story. The story of how he grew from a scared little boy to a man who protect his daughter. How he saw the birth of two heroines who will forever mark the history of the universe.His life from 1960 to 1991.Could have been called: "The man behind the heroines."
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Howard Stark, Carol Danvers & Tony Stark, Howard Stark/Maria Stark
Series: Be unbreakable, go highter, further, faster [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2074446
Comments: 14
Kudos: 43





	1. Meeting Expectations

Howard Edward Stark was born in May 1960. He came into the world the exact way he would spend the rest of his life: capturing the world's attention around him. He had screamed in the private hospital, his brown eyes filled with big tears, as the nurses joyfully announced that he was a beautiful, healthy baby.

On this beautiful spring day, everyone who knew about little Howard had seen their day turned upside down, starting with his father Howard Stark Sr who had walked down the hall while waiting to see his son.

A son.

He could never have asked for better.

A little boy who would guide Stark Industries into a new era, who would continue his work that would honor the name of the Starks, his perfect little boy to whom he had given his name.

An absolutely amazing little wonder.

He had taken him in his arms with a smile, perhaps one of the lasts of his life, looking at the little thing in his arms. He observed it from every angle: his brown orbs that would see the wonders of the future being built, his hands welding and creating, his mouth that would state major scientific advances.

Howard Edward Stark had illuminated his parents' lives by entering it with loud howls.

Howard saw him as his legacy, another thing he would succeed. More than the Rebirth project, more than Steve Rogers: his son.

Unfortunately, it didn't matter how happy they were with the birth of Howard Jr., neither Maria nor Howard was built to raise a child. They had tried, but the CEO of Stark Industries could not sacrifice his precious sleep to change diapers or meet the expectations of a demanding baby, he did not understand him, he was not a robot or a machine that he could disassemble and then pile up to understand the ins and outs.

Howard Stark Sr had let the Jarvis take care of his son before he had even tried, promising to wait until he was older to show him the world he had begun to build for him and which would be his.

Howard Sr was not a good person, few people honestly appreciated him, many portrayed him as a heartless monster, a stern and ruthless being, once an arrogant and joking playboy who had become embittered. Howard Sr knew he wasn't good, but he would make sure that everything he would do for his son was.

Maria, unlike her husband, had really tried. She was a woman of good family, from an old fortune, changing diapers, giving baths, it was not for her and yet she had tried. She had woken up at night. She had tried everything for her son, but she felt she was failing and with the feeling of failure was born tears and disappointment. She had woken up at night. She had tried everything for her son, but she felt she was failing and with the feeling of failure was born tears and disappointment.

At the age of three, neither Maria nor Howard was able to get involved in the education of young Howard Jr., they saw a child.

For Howard Sr, he was a child who didn't grow up fast enough, who did not care for his lab, nuts, screws and motor oil, a child who didn't seem very smart to him when everyone agreed that he was extremely intelligent and very advanced for his age. Howard saw a little boy who preferred to put his hands in the ground helping Ana Jarvis with the flowers rather than learn and look to the future.

Howard Sr was jaded, no matter how much Jarvis claimed with all his patience that young Howard was just a child and that he would eventually grow up and be interested in what his father was doing.

But Howard had then decided to take his pain in patience, dipping himself in his work.

He was driving the power of Stark Industries into the military market with rare determination, crushing the competition more fiercely than he had ever done.

Maria felt like a better mother as the years went by. She had taught a four-year-old Howard Italian and piano, read him stories at night, listened to him peep about a botanical book he would have read and how he would appreciate understanding how living things work. On the other hand, Maria was always overwhelmed, by her son's intelligence, by his vivacity and his ability to become pervasive. She pushed him away to work, often too dry and could see the tears build up in little Howard Jr.'s brown eyes.

It was difficult.

And the more the years passed, the more it was.

When Howard was five years old, he tried to understand human emotions. He understood others better: when they were happy, sad, upset or proud. He had learned aloofness quickly when he tried to tell his father a childish story, then he slammed his tongue against his palate and looked at his drawings or documents without giving Howard Jr his attention.

He understood the annoyance when his mother pushed him away when she was preparing one of her social evenings.

But the emotion Howard had best understood was loneliness.

Even with Ana and Jarvis with him, his days were long and lonely. The two retainers could not stay with him all the time, they worked too, they were busy too.

Adults were all.

There was no one for Howard, there was only the immensity of the mansion with its high agonizing ceilings, the sound of his reasoning steps and sometimes the ghostly and interchangeable faces of the guardians, feeders or servants they saw.

Howard Jr was alone.

And to fill the absence of others, he took refuge in the garden with books, those on biology and botany were his favorites, he learned by heart the name of the plants, marveled when he observed buds and tried his time sitting in the grass always coming back with a pair of stained trousers. His mother always screamed when he came back grimy, he could see her fulminating, her features so graceful closing.

Howard cried a lot because he was deceiving his mother.

In fact, he wasn't the only person he was disappointed with, so was his father.

Howard seemed to lose patience every time he read a book that wasn't about mechanics and physics. He always seemed to get upset when Howard Jr was disinterested in what he was doing, when he wasn't listening to it, when he was talking about steel and gearing when he preferred to stare his mother's new orchid in a pretty cerulean blue.

\- "You're not supposed to study plants!" His father had one day shouted red with rage, a glass of whiskey in his hand. "You weren't supposed to be so disappointing, you had to be the future!"

Howard Jr. had never cried so much, not even when he fell from a tree when he was four and a half years old and sprained his ankle and broke his wrist. He had locked himself in his room, throwing books on plants, on biology, and even those on genetics that he had begun to read. He was a six-year-old boy who discovered that he was not what his parents expected and it hurt.

It hurt so much.

He was just a little boy who wanted to do well and never did anything good enough to have attention or love. His parents were cold and distant and Howard Jr was now convinced it was because he was disappointing.

Shortly before this, he caught all the mechanical and physics books he could find, he read it until he had a blast, until he thought only of that. He was in his room, in the alcove of the window, the garden was not visible, only his father's stunning car collection. There were no more plants in little Howard's life, only drawings, diagrams, explanations and mechanisms.

He would sneak into his father's lab when no one cared enough about him to know where he was, trying not to break anything or not to get hurt. He did not want to suffer the agonies of anger, not when his father's words still reasoned violently in his mind as a dissonant melody.

He tried to build a small engine following the instructions of one of his books. They worked at length, hard, learning to control materials, to understand how machines work, to know the difference between components. He marveled a little, not as much as biology, but he liked to notice the similarities, he liked to associate the different parts of a mechanism with an element that made life.

Howard worked for a month every day on his small engine, delicately placing all the wires and parts, testing it several times until everything was perfect. He almost fell off his little stool when he succeeded, proud of himself, his little fingers stained with blacks, his tired little eyes and his muscles ankylosed.

He went out with his little success, ready to run to his father's office to show him. He wanted him to know that he was not a disappointment, he wanted him to understand that he could be like him.

Once at the door, he prepared to enter, and then he remembered that his mother had always told him to knock. Edwin Jarvis was at the other end of the hall making sure that Mrs. Stark's last Ming vase was well disposed when he saw the boy finally following the rules of decorum that Maria Stark struggled to instill in him.

His little fist tapped three times, he waddled while holding his little motor. Howard Sr opened with a dark look, a glass of alcohol in his hand, his eyes wrinkled with anger.

\- "I'm busy, Howard, go play somewhere else, I'm not in the mood."

The door slammed while the little boy stood in front of the wide door. He always held his little motor, trembling like a leaf, his mouth half open.

\- "Little master, I advise you not to stay there." Jarvis gently tells him, touching his shoulder. "What's in your hands?"

\- "It's... it's a moto... “ The little boy sobbed with tears rolling with his little brown eyes as he trembled a little louder. "I built it. I wanted to show Father that I wasn't disappointing. »

And Howard burst into tears, as sad as the day his father yelled at him. He wanted to throw away the mechanism on which he had spent so much time and to which he had given so much energy. For nothing.

This engine, the knowledge he had accumulated, was useless.

\- "It's a beautiful machine, it's very impressive."

\- "It's not impressive." Howard cried harder by throwing him in the chest, Jarvis managing to catch it before he fell. "It sucks."

His face was drowned behind the tears of misery of a six-year-old disappointed who he was so desperate to please.

It took three days for Ana Jarvis, gentler and sensitive, to manage to get the child out of her room, she had a plate of hot cookies and a glass of milk that had rumbled the child's belly. She consoled him by explaining that her father was very busy and that many people put a lot of pressure on his shoulders and on the future of the company.

Ana explained that Howard Stark Sr was very proud that his son was so great, but that he was just very worried about his business and that it was not after him that he had any, but after insensitive investors.

\- "Do my parents love me?"

\- "From all their hearts." Ana promised with a sincere smile. "You know, not all parents are the same, they have different ways of expressing their affection. Howard and Maria have a lot of difficulty to show it, and you're a little small to understand how they do it, but I assure you they love you. »

\- "How do they do it? Can you explain to me?” The always sad boy demanded with a sulky pout.

\- "They create a world for you. Your mom helps others for you to live in a world where all the people are happy and your dad is fighting for you to live in a world where you're safe and everyone can see how great you are. »

\- "But what's the point of building this world for me if I'm sad?"

Ana had no answer, but she took the child in her arms, tears in her eyes. Hiding them so that the child doesn't have to see her pain for him. She and Edwin did their best, they wanted with all their heart that their little master they loved as a son would be happy, but it was difficult.

So hard.

But they knew.

They knew that young Howard Stark was the way his parents wanted, he’s perfect, and even more, he’s their expectations, and even more. Ana had been so proud and laughed with happiness when she saw Jarvis running the little motor.

One way or another, the little boy she hugged was going to create something that would change the world.


	2. The end of the Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Peggy Carter influences the life of the young Howard Jr and how his childhood end.

She had high chin, red lips, and a sly smile.

Howard loved his aunt Peggy more than anything in the world, she was a remarkable woman and the only one who seemed to see him.

The only family that loved him against all odds no matter what he did.

Peggy Carter had been a constant in Howard's life until he could fly on his own. She was the one who had taught him the most important lessons, one that no book could ever teach him.

She was also the one who had pulled him out of the dark and miserable state in which he had immersed himself after the motor fail.

Winter began to die when she arrived at Stark Manor in a bright red corvette, the same red as her lips. Her curls were perfect and neat, her heels slamming against the pavement of the center aisle.

Peggy Carter was a busy woman and her missions were tirelessly dedicated to making the world a safe and peaceful place. She and her husband had chosen not to have children for those reasons, contenting themselves with those close to them, pampering them as if they were their own.

Howard Jr liked to think he was his favorite.

It was probably stupid because Peggy Carter was the kind of person whose heart was always fair and full of kindness. She loved equally. Still, Howard felt reassured, as if there was someone in this world who could put him first.

Before galas and social obligations.

Before the future and a multi-million dollar business.

Howard Jr had merely observed her with his brown eyes beyond the glass of his windows.

His father greeted her with that friendly tone and kind face he had never seen. A face he always seemed to reserve for what he never disappointed: his aunt Peg, his mother, but not him.

They were probably going to talk business.

Howard Jr. was certainly not what his parents expected of him, but he was smart enough to understand that his aunt Peggy and father ran an international security organization. He could hear whispers of corridors, seeing important people with guns on their hips and sharp suspicious eyes.

In fact, Howard had immersed himself in a book on thermo-physics, once his aunt Peggy's silhouette had faded from the window. Indeed, he did not expect her to come and see him.

He did not want her to come, he preferred to see her from far, to think that she might be too busy saving the world.

He preferred it, because his aunt Peggy would like to understand what upset him so much.

If she knew... maybe she would admit that he was really disappointing.

Despite his best efforts.

Since the motor debacle, Howard had worked harder.

He would sneak into the lab, disassemble his toys, and read again and again. He no longer went outside, forced himself to look away when he observe too long on plants, on nature, on what he loved but which his father did not.

He wanted to be better for his family. He wanted to be what was expected of him.

\- "Little sir, Miss Peggy Carter would like to see you." Jarvis announced at his door three hours after the corvette arrived.

Howard had hesitated.

He had doubted a lot before leaving his room, opening his door, facing Jarvis's ever-tender but nevertheless anxious gaze, before facing the large empty, cold space of Stark Manor.

Her aunt Peggy had waited for him in the lobby, she wore one of her very fashionable dresses of a pretty pale blue and suede shoes. Her face lit up when she saw her godson, a smile pulling her carmine lips.

\- "Howard! My little terror!” Aunt Peggy peeped, approaches him to hug him.

It was a reassuring gesture in which little Howard melted, squeezing the fabric of his dress, smelling the sweet and reassuring smell of flower and earth, he could feel all the warmth and strength of his aunt Peggy. She was the most secure person of her life and with her, Howard always felt that grief could never reach him again.

\- "How are you? You've grown up a lot since the last time. Do you eat your vegetables well? »

Howard nodded without saying a word.

Peggy frowned in an expression that was both anxious and suspicious.

Before he was heartbroken, Howard was a lively boy with pants full of grass and mud, hair in battle and a smile that shaded the sun. He was like all children, dynamic and cheerful. Peggy liked to say that he sang like a little bird while he made a quick summary of everything his aunt had missed in his life.

He told her in an energetic tone all his adventures, his discoveries.

Now it was nothing but silence.

A gloomy and sad silence that was certainly not the melody that surrounded a six-year-old.

\- "Howard, sweetheart, what's wrong?"

\- "Nothing." The child lied

\- "Sweetheart, you don't lie to me, or you learn to lie." She teased by stooping to her level to observe him.

Howard was the exact portrait of his father. He had his incisive and curious brown eyes, his tanned skin, jet hair, his features were just softer, those of a child and even growing up, Peggy knew that he would keep Maria's aristocratic grace.

The problem was that he looked too much like Howard Sr and no longer like the child with a passion for botany whose eyes shone with innocent candour.

\- "There is nothing Aunt Peg."

\- "So let's go into the garden!" She announced more keenly, always tossing him with her brown eyes.

Howard Jr agreed, feeling strangely calmer again in his element. With the end of winter sounding its death knell, nature began to awaken again and gently, the small green dots on the brown branches would become buds and shoots would become flowers.

And Howard wouldn't see it.

The little boy had to study.

Aunt Peg made him play with a sword, inventing an incredible story out of her imagination. She attacked him with a childish air, having cured grime, her brushing or even greying time. She laughed loudly with her throat outstretched, she swore a little and her tone was not equal.

That was awesome.

What Howard always admired about his aunt Peggy and that he would always admire was his spontaneity and freedom.

\- "Raise your sword higher." She laughed as she backed away, not chasing her shoes full of mud. "And beware! Because you'll never get my treasure back. »

\- "I would beat you!" The little boy strongly opposed her with a smile, the first in weeks.

Finally, Jarvis called the little boy, announcing that it would soon be bathing time. The night slowly began to fall while hours had passed.

Howard was sad again.

Howard wanted to cry because her time with his aunt was over and she wouldn't be back for a long time.

But the little boy was no longer crying. He couldn't cry, he remembered a phrase from his father: the Starks are made of iron and iron is unbreakable. Then he wasn't supposed to cry.

\- "Sweetheart? Is everything okay? Asked his aunt, seeing the stark contrast in her attitude.

\- "I'm fine."

\- "No, honey." She sighed as she lowered herself once again, her shoes sinking into the earth when she seemed truly dead of anxiety. "Please tell me."

\- "Am I disappointing?"

\- "Disappointing? No, sweetheart, you’re extraordinary.” She answered quickly, with the greatest sincerity.

He will remember all her life how she had swept the hair from her forehead, fondled her cheek, smiled, and kissed him on the nose.

\- "The person who dared to say this is an idiot. The greatest idiot on earth, okay? You're smart, clever, adorable and fairly good to fight with wooden swords.” She had a little laugh as tears piled up in little Howard's eyes. "You know in life a lot of people will judge what you do, so don't forget that you, Howard Edward Stark, Peggy Carter's favorite godson, you are extraordinary."

Howard wept with relief in the arms of his aunt Peggy. They stayed like this for a long time, the time of the bath passing, while the night fell for good. The little boy let out his anger and frustration, all the negative emotions that his little body had absorbed like a sponge.

After that, Peggy came more often, she multiplied visits and when Howard Jr was not with her. She was trying to convince his father to take a little more interest in him, to spend father-son time.

Howard Sr did not leave his office, but he observed, it was something he had learned to do over time, with SHIELD, to observe his environment to understand it perfectly, to know how to act.

He noticed how Peggy cultivated Howard's knowledge of biology, plants and genetics, ranging from cheap science kits to advanced books and gardening sessions in gardens.

He noticed how she subtly taught him to defend himself under the guise of playing "to fight", sparing with wooden swords.

He noticed that Peggy, who came sporadically, was probably a better parent to little Howard than Maria or him.

Peggy was the only person who could perfectly console Howard Jr when he was upset.

Although he was soon eight years old, he continued to cling to the children's plays and the stories she told him over and over again, the same, often about Captain America, and he listened to it as if it were the first time. And Peggy was always more than happy to count him extraordinary adventures.

\- "And boom!"

\- "The grenade exploded?" The child questioned, widening his eyes as they were in the grass.

\- "No. But Steve Rogers pounce on the grenade while all his comrades fled. Just to protect them. »

\- "But you said it was a story before the serum? Before he became a hero. »

\- "It's a story before your father injects him with the serum, it's true." Peggy affirmed with a smile. "But you know, it's not the powers or the physical abilities that make a hero, little terror. What makes him a hero is his good heart, his ability to save or think of other forwards himself. »

\- "But he could have died." The child pressed by frowning. "He was willing to die for people who weren't even nice to him? It's a little silly. »

Peggy had a sad smile, as if she had left in another era.

\- "That's what heroes do."

\- "I could never be a hero then." He made a rather sad pout. "I could never protect bad or just mean guys, but I can do like Dad before, help the heroes if I'm good enough for it."

\- "You will be, sweetheart, you are extraordinary remember."

Peggy repeated on each visit that Howard Jr was extraordinary. The child seemed surprised each time, smiling as if he had just been offered the moon. It warmed the soldier's heart almost as much as it broke.

And yet she knew it.

Howard was amazing.

One day this child would build something extraordinary.

One day he was going to change the world and bring it into a new era.

And for now, it was like he was flying in a cage. So Peggy's duty was to get him out, so that he would fly higher, further and faster than any human before him.

She had to do something.

After handing Howard Jr over to the Jarvis, she headed to her best friend's office.

Howard had become different over the years, wiser, but also more bitter. Betrayal, disappointment and frustration were a mixture that could make the best of them all a person filled with bitterness.

Peggy could barely distinguish the wacky genius, the charming playboy, the funny and often arrogant man who had been her best friend. She saw the man who was too busy building a safer world for her son and perpetuating Captain America's legacy to realize what was really important.

\- "Your son is amazing."

\- "Peg if it's to tell me... »

\- "You know he was six years old when he made his first motor out of nothing? You know Jarvis picks it up in your lab building little robots? You know he reads very advanced physics and mechanics?” The woman asked in a sharp tone. "You know he's doing this to get your attention."

Howard raised his mouth open his head, but Peggy resumed long before him. She was much better at defending positions. She was much better did not matter the fight.

\- "You know that your son is a genius and that he only aspires to make you proud and that it consumes him?"

\- "I don't know what to do!"

Peggy was surprised.

\- "Be his father."

\- "No one told me how to be the father of such an extraordinary child."

\- "To be present is good enough, you know that Howard?"

And Howard became present, realizing his child's genius, taking him to his laboratory to comprehend that he had always been what he wanted him to be and even more. He was smart, cunning with a different vision, more incisive, more lively. The objects were no longer an inanimate assemblage, they were alive.

That was good.

To try again.

But it was too late.

Howard Sr had nothing left to teach his son, and at last he had no time to teach him what books or private tutors could no longer teach him. Practice, social interactions and more advanced, more precise sciences.

He could.

But it was too much time, he always had a future world to build, a world to protect and safeguard for his son.

So the Starks, Jarvis and Peggy Carter were at Stark Manors, saying goodbye to the little boy in September 1969, he entered St. Jude's private school for little genius in the north of the country. And Howard Jr still had to hold back from crying, hugging his aunt Peggy longer than the others.

Howard Edward Stark's childhood ended in this way.

A brief moment of happiness.

Aunt Peg who was the constant of his life, the brightest star in his universe.

His father who had realized that he was enough, that he was intelligent and capable.

His mother who kissed him tenderly.

The Jarvis who smiled.

He had succeeded, he was no longer disappointing.

In reality, he was different, not extraordinary, so extraordinary that he had to leave his bubble of happiness.

He had to leave the innocence.

He had to leave the candour.

When Howard Stark grew up, he would understand that anecdotal day in September when he entered school was the worst, because it marked the beginning of his life.

A difficult and hard life.

It was the last time his father would smile in his presence.

It was the last time his mother's eyes would shine without shame for giving birth to him.

It was the last time Aunt Peggy and Howard would be together without arguing.

That was the last time he was a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy it.
> 
> HappyIsBlue


	3. Building himself in the ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The life of Howard Stark Jr through his years in bording school. The beginning of a controversial character.

The paparazzi flashes and rumors started when he was ten years old. The press must have estimated that he was no longer a child, that he could bear the weight of lies and accusations. It had just begun, one of his comrades at St. Jude's Engineering Boarding School had been told that he was an insufferable Mister-know-it-all.

The fact was that Howard was a know-it-all had not played in his favor, but he was hardly unbearable, he was fearful and lonely. His comrades played bad tricks on him, he had no friends and he preferred to build small machines rather than bear the dismissive and haughty character of the other little boys.

Journalists would never look for his side of the story and had established a postulate that would follow him all his life: "Howard Stark Jr was a disdainful asshole." It was not what was written, for sure, but it was what the long lines of lies printed on glossy paper implied.

\- "I hate them." Howard had one day sobbed sitting in his bed, in his boarding room.

He was ten and a half years old. And he was still lent unspeakable acts, accused of jokes that he had not made but had suffered. And her aunt Peggy's words mixed with her father's turned inside his head, he was incredible, and he was a Stark. The Starks are made of iron, they never bend under pressure. Howard was not to be a Stark because his cheeks were filled with tears, and his chest so painful that he wanted to scream to remove his suffering.

His life had become miserable again.

And this time, there was no one.

He received comfort only from the letters he received. His mother and his neat and curly handwriting brought him a strange distant comfort and he hid the sweets they received under slats. She always asked him if he was really responsible for what the press was relaying, and seemed to believe it when he explained his version of events.

Auntie Peg wrote to him more regularly, she simply advised him to teach a lesson to his little comrades, a fact easier to write than to do. He was a genius, and because of that, he knew that attacking an entire school was a stupid and risky gamble.

Jarvis wrote to him from time to time, but behind his words there was nothing gratifying. His father was worried, not for him, no, about the Starks' reputation. It was not common for such a young child to be harassed so severely by the press, he was not one of those stars children who went on television and sank, he was supposed to be a Stark.

The Starks aren't on the front page of the tabloid press.

Howard Jr didn't have an army of lawyers he could throw in front of ten-year-olds.

So he was trying to find solace. In machine building and botany. He had already devoured all the books of the school, the heavy shelves of the library offered him an excellent hiding place and Mrs Pince could not bear that someone could disturb the heavenly calm of her lair. No one would ever come here to provoke him.

It was a lonely life for a little boy.

A life that would only get worse.

He was thirteen years old when his father was summoned by the director. A great mustachioed man who had only one way of communicating: money. Maybe that's why the journalists were always there, he had to pay handsomely to allow the latest rumors about the Stark child to be transmitted.

A child described as meditating, turbulating and troubled. A genius, too. He excelled in mechanics and engineering, his teachers, those who did not look at him as a plague claimed that he would be an incredible future leader for Stark Industries. He continued to discreetly increase his talent in botany. Discreetly because the last time he had done so in the eyes of all, the greenhouse had been devastated and his projects destroyed.

He had been charged. Again.

He had not cried that day. He had once again plunged into a deep silence.

" Mr. Stark, good morning." The handler had greeted while Howard was already in an armchair, his head bowed, and his fists clenched.

\- "Be brief, I don't have all day."

\- "Howard here is... turbulating with his little comrades. He broke Norman Osborn's nose and thanks to mountains of persuasion, we convinced Mr. Ambrose Osborn not to press charges, but that's... »

\- "Did you hit him?" Howard Sr growled turning to his son, his eyes wrinkled angrily. "Could you leave us alone, handler?"

\- "Obviously."

Howard had quickly become frightened. His fist was still painful, and Norman's words swirled in his mind. He had found his weakness and had exploited it excessively until he cracked and smashed his fist against his nose as Auntie Peg had taught him.

\- "I have put up with a lot of his last six years. The press, in particular. The number of trash that comes out about you is...” He did not finish his sentence. "Your mother and Peggy are trying to convince me that these are just mistakes, that the press writes what she wants and that you are just a victim and now you are hitting? What am I supposed to believe? »

\- "I... »

\- "Don't answer!"

He had slammed his fist on the handler's oak desk startling him.

\- "Don't answer Howard! A victim and now a hitter? You're a Stark! “The father shouted. "A Stark does not falter, he does not stoop to vilenies, he is not a victim and he does not take revenge in such a grotesque way as by breaking a nose. It's... Dishonorable. »

Howard had failed to cry, but he knew that his father would be able to deny him if he did. Then he had raised his chin, trembling and had looked it straight in the eye. It was the moment when his father's relationship had turned upside down, a blinding hatred burning in his chest for the man who called himself his father.

\- "If you had been a real father to me, I would not have been such a disappointment to you, and Aunt Peggy would not have been the one who would have explained to me how to deal with my harassers during this last six years." He paused. "It's hard to think you're a war hero, you're so cowardly when it comes to taking responsibility for your mistakes."

The slap had been painful. The first and only one, but she was there. It had marked itself in Howard's mind.

After that, Howard had decided that the rumors, he would be the only ones to control them. He behaved exactly as the press described him in public, he walled himself behind arrogance and disdain for all forms of life. He was himself only with his auntie Peg, the Jarvis, and his mother, enjoying all his moments as if they were treasure.

Howard tolerated him with constant disagreement, subjecting the same treatment as the press and the people who wanted to take advantage of him. He was facing a cold, icy wall whose foundations he had planted himself years earlier.

\- "You can't blame him forever, honey." He had once had Peggy with an exhaustedmine. 

He was fourteen years old, and he now knew that throughout his years his aunt Peggy had fought for him. She had never been able to sit alone with Howard without fiercely defending him, arguing with her best friend for him to pay real attention to his son, to help him in the face of an entire school of rumors and voracious journalists. He was a little boy when it started and it was a situation that no one could live in.

\- "Yes." Howard Jr. had coolly advanced, "I can."

\- "No, you can't, you may not be meant to be a hero, but you have a good heart. And it's bad for you to stay angry for so long. “She had paused. "In addition you know... people fade and eventually disappear forever, if your father disappears like this and you hate him so fiercely and you can't remind him that you love him, you're going to hate yourself for it. »

\- "I don't care." He smiles at her for real. "You're here, Aunt Peg, you're my hero, I don't need him."

\- "Yes, sweetheart, it's just that you don't realize it."

Aunt Peggy's smile was haunted and he decided to forget the conversation.

He had forgotten it until he found himself in a private hospital corridor in New York. The Starks were made of steel, they did not flex. Howard wasn't supposed to be a Stark, he cried so hard in his mother's arms that he was convinced he could fill an ocean with all the salty tears that poured down his cheeks.

Ana Jarvis had died of cancer. It was staggering, he had barely had time to come back from boarding school, to tell her that he loved her like an aunt, to hold her hand, to pray that she would recover, for one to survive. He had barely had time to say goodbye, his heart had cracked and he had consumed himself in heavy sorrow. Ana had given her last breath as the hissing of the cardiogram announced that she had died peacefully near her husband.

Peggy had cried, not that he thought she was insensitive, but he had always believed her stronger than the tears, and it was strange to see her sobbing so heavily, her mascara pouring down her proud face. His father was barely younger than the Jarvis. He would also disappear one day. Maybe in a way as fast as Ana Jarvis.

\- "I'm sorry." He had said a week after the death of the woman who was still bringing him cookies to console him.

He had rushed into his father's office. Obadiah Stane, his faithful right-hand man next to him, they were watching prestigious university brochures with a critical eye. Howard had just turned fifteen, and he already had his high school diploma obtained with honors at St. Jude's Boarding School for Genius. It had been comforting to see Norman Osborn's hate-filled face and twisted nose.

\- "Howard!" His father had annoyed him. "Have you never learned good manners... »

\- "I'm sorry about what I said two years ago in the office of the director of St. Jude. I... I wanted you to know that. »

Howard Sr was surprised, as Obadiah raised an eyebrow with his usual shark look. Howard Jr had always fiercely disliked his father's partner without ever finding anything wrong with his work. He was obnoxious and reminded him of his comrades in St. Jude, with his cruel eyes and his habit of treating him as if they were of the same blood to better destroy him in front of his father.

\- "I wanted you to know." He repeated. "I wanted you to know also that all the rumors of his last years in the newspapers are unfounded, I am not a victim either, I would take revenge on each of them when I was at the head of Stark Industries by crushing them in the market, will be all the more enjoyable. What happened with Norman Osborn was an outburst and I apologize to you because I never wanted to offend Stark's name. »

He took a deep breath.

\- "I'm really sorry and I... I would not want you to doubt the affection I have for you, father. »

He was heading for the exit.

\- "What would you say about MIT, Howard?"

He froze.

\- "As long as we behave in an exemplary manner this time, we would not want to tarnish the reputation of Stark Industries." Intervened Stane in a soft voice.

\- "Would it be possible for me to have a PhD in biological engineering in parallel."

\- "Yes."

\- "I’d love to do that then. The MIT. »

Howard Jr never saw the smile on Howard Sr's lips, nor the anger that burned Stane's falsely sympathetic features.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like it ! 
> 
> HappyIsBlue


	4. A time of break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Time of Howard at the MIT.

The MIT.

Howard had smiled widely for the first time since Ana's death. He entered MIT at the age of fifteen, a little bit small and leggy in comparison to the students who were generally more than three years older than him. He was happy though.

The university was so big that no one would do it bad as in St. Jude. He was glad because he could make a fresh start. The press could not prosecute him, his father had promised this time to invest a little more in his protection from journalists.

Life seemed more tender under this new beginning. He was more than happy.

-"Oh my little baby goes to MIT." Maria Stark smiled tenderly as she looked at the campus with a keen eye. "You've grown so fast."

He felt the bitterness of her tone as well as the regret of not having been so present. Howard was taller, he knew that his parents were too busy building a perfect world for him, to pay attention to him, really careful. It was perhaps better so, the few signs of affection leaving him in a strange condition.

"He's not that tall." Peggy noted with humor.

"I'm only fifteen, I'm still growing." The boy pouted with a smile as his auntie Peg's gaze shone.

"You see Maria, your little baby is still there." The SHIELD agent smiles. "And don't forget snotty, you don't do anything I would do and nothing I wouldn't do."

-"That leaves me a little leeway." Howard replied with a smile.

Aunt Peggy had started telling him this famous phrase at the beginning of the summer, he had failed to burn down his entire laboratory while trying to build an AI, but it was clear that he was not the Stark who would succeed in this prodigy.

-"Ladies, we should go, the young gentleman will soon start his first classes, we would not want bothered him or worse that he arrives late."

"I'm going to miss you, too, Jarvis." The boy smiles tenderly.

MIT was a constant source of curiosity. His classes were stimulating and he felt like a kind of unknown in a vast equation. People always looked at him with amazement when they heard Stark's name, but overall, they left him relatively quiet. He had even made a friend: Mary.

She was his laboratory partner and took biological engineering classes with him. She had fire red hair that she always dressed in bright and colorful bars, like sunflowers or stars, she always wore lively and aggressive colors, never leaving her pair of scarlet shoes. She drew on her arms and legs when classes annoyed her and she always had a disjointed and wacky speech.

She was better than him. Not much. But always better. So he respected her.

-"I'm just saying it really looks like mucus that could come out of an alien during a stupidly risky operation!" The girl explained humorously as they dissected a strange plant that released a thick purple substance. "Besides, I think some of the plants we have come from other planets, not possible that this boring land that created us can create such fun things."

-"Do you find humans boring?"

"Yes, not you? But do not worry, you are not boring, I think you might even be less boring than the norm of boredom. »

He had trouble following her, but she was amusing and most of all, she had chased away a swarm of journalists with a sharp smile and a strong English accent. Mary Fitzpatrick was a little crazy but he loved her like that. She was his best friend and he wouldn't trade her for anything in the world. She introduced him to Star Wars, after she discovered that he didn't know the "Most Awesome Masterpiece in Cinema."

"So every time I said to you, "Come to the dark side of the force, I have cookies, didn't you understand?”" She pretended to think and laughed. "You're weird Stark, I definitely love you."

A feeling of warmth was born in his chest. He could almost have believed that he might have fallen in love with her if he wasn't convinced that it wasn't love but only friendship. He hated everything about love, the people kissing, the excessive displays of affection in public, he preferred to be friends with her. Love was too abstract for him, and he was not sure that it interested him.

But he loved Mary, like his best friend.

"Wait, let me repeat? You're taking classes to get three doctorates? At the same time? And you're only 15?” She pretended to think. "Are you a cyborg?"

"What? No. »

"Strange. Do you have a small time machine? »

-"I'm not sure that's possible at the quantum level."

Mary had sniffed by brushing off the statement with a hand gesture.

"Almost sure it is. The impossible is for narrow-minded people. »

"That's what my father always says." A voice intervened in the park where Mary and Howard had settled to work. "Justin Hammer, future creator of the impossible."

"Hammer? Like Hammer Industries?” Howard was astonished, looking up at his mechanical continuing environments lessons.

"Exactly and you are the baby Stark." He sniffed dismissively as Mary raised an eyebrow.

-"He's not a baby, he's past thirty-six months and has all the cognitive functions of an adult in the making." The redhead pointed out, pinching her lips, a confused false air.

-"Baby Stark." He said. "That I would crush when I became CEO of Hammer Industries, if my father didn't crush yours first."

Howard raised an eyebrow. Hammer Industries supplied weapons to the military as Stark Industries could, they were of far less quality, and they often had unacceptable defects. It would probably take years and several scandals for the company opposing its own to even hope to surpass Stark Industries.

In addition, the Hammers lacked something sorely essential, charisma. Charisma induced confidence and he seemed to be the kind of person we were running away from, a somewhat crazy scientist who collected failure.

-"No chance." Howard simply shrugged. "Really. Not a chance. »

-"That's what you think, but my father is working on a new project that yours can never match."

-"I doubt it, it was your father who tried to copy my father several times, each time it ended in a miserable failure."

-"And you want to know what is your father's greatest wretched failure? You. You're his worst creation.”

Mary was faster to react.

She sprayed him with pepper spray and the boy screamed away, under the curious glances of the other students. Howard turned to her with surprise.

-"What? No one can tell a friend of mine that this is a failure, especially if it is not true. He's just jealous.” She resumed, looking again at her homework. "Don't worry about me, my last name is Fitzpatrick, we're politicians more than scientists, which means that if he dares to open his mouth, hell will pour over him."

Her angelic smile was terrifying, but Howard was never so happy to have Mary in his life.

Until she had to leave her. Mary had been called to London at the end of their second year of study and Howard was already working with application to obtain his doctorates at the end of the following year, hoping to graduate at eighteen and then have three years to prepare to take over Stark Industries.

He thought he was going to cry, she was there, she was a gentle and protective friend. Journalists had never dared to approach them and never dared to write anything while he was under her protection. The Fitzpatricks were kind and wacky people with a keen energy. And he'd miss her. Her career was on, she was great. And he had to say goodbye to her.

-"Don't make that Stark face." The young woman laughs. "It looks like you're going to bury someone. Besides, if you must bury me, I ask you to put a great music like _Dancing Queen_ of Abba, I adore it. »

-"Don't talk about your funeral."

-" And it will take balloons, and glitter, and color, a lot of color. And no one should cry. It's so sad funerals and so boring. »

-« Mary. »

-"Yes?"

-"I'm going to miss you."

-"Do you love me? I mean, are you in love with me? »

Howard had been shocked by the question.

He had remained frozen while Mary looked at him with her big brown eyes. Howard would have liked to fall in love with her, she was a kind person, easy to love, sweet and always smiling. His father would probably have gone into cardiac arrest and so would his mother, she was anything but a lady or a respectable girl. Even today, she had drawn the solar system on her arms, and her fire hair was invaded by rainbow-colored bars.

Howard was just convinced that he would never fall in love because he wasn't interested in people like that. He didn't feel any romantic attraction.

-"No. But it is not you Mary, it's me, I think I don't... I cannot love people like that? »

-"I understand." She smiled with all her teeth, he could see that she was not hurt, she expected it. "I just hope you're happy Howard, you really deserve it. And then I'm relieved, imagine a remote London-MIT relationship? I'm going with Richard Parker anyway. He's less smart than us, but he's interesting to draw. »

-"Interesting to draw."

-"He's pretty."

-"I'm not sure that is a thing you say about someone you physically attracted."

She frowned, shrugging her shoulders and smiling.

-"Since when do I say the right things?" She took him in her arms gently, it was a sweet embrace with a taste of farewell. "I don't know if I would come back to the United States, at least, not until I'm a mom, I don't want my future child to take on the same snobbish and pompous accent as me. Just, if one day you hear about a Peter Parker... He'll be my son. »

-" I thought it was just interesting to draw. I thought you ... »

-"Was I in love with you ? Yes, but you don't want me, so I'll see if Richard is interesting to draw, that's what I said. I think it is, it is not boring. I can cry over a boy for too long, that is so boring. So, if he likes me, well we'll have a child called Peter Parker. »

-"I'm not sure it's like that... »

-"I'm a woman, if I don't make my own rules of the game, well I don't play, then I decide. So shut up and listen to me. My son will be smarter than you. That's it, that's all. »

-"I'm not going to miss this kind of disjointed exchange."

-"But I do, that's the main one."

And Mary was gone. It was strange but he had kept a couple of things from her. These included several paintings and drawings, post-it notes she had left lying around in her room and photos. She had changed the ringing of her phone to Dancing Queen and had left her the draft of her last wishes. It was wacky and fun, like Mary.

His last year, however, was far from the lightness of the other two. The journalists returned with ferocious fury, and he lent him tumultuous relations when he did not love anyone romantically and he was also not sexually luring by others. He did not go to any parties, making sure to always call his mother on the evenings of student drinking to serve him as an alibi, he worked hard to succeed his doctorates. He didn't have time to go out, or even age.

And yet the situation had become a complete disaster. His father knew that everything was wrong, but he couldn't contain the press and that caused Stark Industries shares to fall. It was a disaster for the company and several times the teenager had held back from beating Justin Hammer who rejoiced with the greatest perversion.

A new gap had widened in Howard's life after a beautiful period of happiness. He was again alone and sad with his knowledge. Looking at life and smiles behind his windows.

No one had come when he presented his biological engineering thesis. Jarvis was busy on secret business with his father and Peggy and his mother was preparing for the Maria Stark Foundation Gala. It was strange to make a real breakthrough in neuroscience without anyone to listen to it. To be proud of him. He had finished his presentation with a kind of pain in the chest, strengthening when Mary had texted him to congratulate him.

That day, he had gone to the local O'Donuts, shaving sugar to forget the disappointment and loneliness he had felt when presenting his first real successful project, a project that would probably save lives in the future but which would be drowned in a flood of articles pondering about him.

-"Sorry kid, you don't have enough change." The cashier kindly tells a ten-year-old boy with a disappointed look.

-"Hey, I'm paying for him." Howard intervened refusing to let anyone be more miserable than him. "Let him take what pleases him."

The little one settled next to him a few minutes later, he was ten years old and looked calm and kind, a little too reserved perhaps. His eyes shone with the gleam of geniuses as he swallowed his first donut.

-"So kid? What makes you devour so many donuts? »

"I got a B today. That’s a failure." He says it as if it were a fatality. "What about you?"

-"I made a breakthrough in neuroscience and my family wasn't there to see it. They had better things to do. »

-"Neuroscience?"

-"The science of the brain. It's very difficult and only the smartest people are capable of miracles. I managed to find a way to help neurosurgeons, the real heroes of the brain. »

-"Wow." The child was enthusiastic. "If I became a neurosurgeon, my mom could never blame me for not working enough at school."

-"And you would also become very rich." He pinched his lips. "But do a job because you want to, not because your parents tell you."

-"Well, I like science, biology and I wanted to work for Stark Industries, because they're great! Howard Stark even built a flying car, but I really want to do biology. »

-"Give me your little name?"

-« Stephen Strange. »

-« Strange? »

-"I know, my comrades make fun of me for that."

-"My comrades of me make fun of me while I'm Howard Stark Jr., you know." He shrugged. "I'll keep an eye on you kid, keep eating your donuts for now."

Fortunately, his graduation was not as sad as his thesis in biological engineering, even if Stephen Strange's ambitions had consoled him a little. Auntie Peg, his mother and Jarvis were present, applauding him loudly as he received the honors, his diploma in hand. The press kept destroying him on the icing paper, but he was at least a little happy to achieve something.

Until he's not. After graduation, he had returned to Stark Manor, the big empty house he had grown up in, he still felt like the disappointed and sad six-year-old boy who wanted to please his father cost that. A wish he still had today, even with three doctorates at the age of eighteen. He might have succeeded if the lies on his account did not spread in the increasingly scandalous press.

"Howard, your father wants to see you."

His father's office seemed inhospitable to him and doing so was obadiah Stane's concern. The room looked dark. Howard hated this play with all his being because it was never good when he was there. In his last years, it had been only to tell him to be more careful, to blame him for the company's stock market losses, to tell him that he was not able to do something simple: to flee the press.

"You're a graduate."

"Yes."

-"But you didn't respect your share of our deal." Howard Sr said in an incisive tone. "Two years was total silence for two years and this year it was the flood, if you ever entered Stark Industries now, Hammer would be able to outrun us. That incompetent Hammer moron! »

Obadiah had the smile of his predators who were coming to an end. The boy felt trapped, as if he knew what was to follow. Would he be disinherited? Probably. Where then we would send him into exile, where no one could write about him, we would wait for the case to settle down. We'd forget about it.

-" I can't get you away from Stark Industries though. Your theses were incredible.” The man said with an imperceptible touch of pride. "You are an asset to the company, the heir to Stark Industries, we have to wait for the press to calm down and I have an idea."

Howard held his breath, the compliment quickly swept away by his father's need to hide it.

-"In Nevada, I'm working on a project with Nasa, the U.S. Air Force and the Shield. The PEGASUS project, they are running out of staff and you will be a significant asset on the project. »

-« Nevada. »

-"The Nevada Desert." Stane said with a carnivorous air. "Even the worst journalists wouldn't dare brave the desert to find you."

"How long?"

-"According to investors, four years will be good. You will be able to improve, work on an important project and we will be able to prepare your entry into the company by making a clean slate of the past. »

Howard came out of the room with the impression of touching the bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like !  
> Yes there is Stephen Strange and Mary Fitzpatrick (Peter Parker's mother).  
> Next time, the incredible Carol Danvers come ! Yeahhhh !


	5. New perspetive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard meet his best friend : Carol Danvers.

Nevada was an expanse of sand. The sun was banging wildly against the car's iron and apart from cacti, it seemed that there was nothing for miles.

The perfect place for exile.

If Howard Stark Jr., barely eighteen years old, found the way to the Nevada exhausting, there was no doubt that no journalist would come and dig him up there. There was only warm, red sand as far as his eyes could see.

He sighed at length as Jarvis watched him from the rear-view mirror, a desolate look in his face. Journalists had been a heavy wound in his life, and they were stopping him from living. He was forced to join the Pegasus project, to redeem for nothing he had done.

The Pegasus Project is a kind of initiative that aimed to militarize a supposedly infinite source of energy. It was very vague as an indication and even Howard Stark Sr could do better, and yet he had let him cogitate on this meager description. He had also given her a name, Dr. Wendy Lawson, a talented engineer who oversaw the project and who would welcome him when he arrived.

-"Sir... »

-'I'm not sure I want to hear anything Jarv'.” The teenager simply said by placing his head against the hot glass. "Four years here... »

-"I'm sure Mister Stark will change his mind very quickly. He was proud of you, you know. »

-"Just proud enough to hide me from the rest of the world."

-"To protect you from it." The butler corrected. "That's all he's always done, protecting you, even when you saw the opposite. Mr. Stark is many things, but never doubt the affection he has for you. »

Howard remained bitter in his words and stayed silent until the inevitable moment of separation. When he left the Manor, Auntie Peg’ had taken him in her arms and apologized for his father's behaviour and she had left a large trace of carmine lipstick on his cheek. His mother had cried, slightly, she probably felt sorry and sad, but she had just given him some recommendations to survive in a desert place with poise.

Howard Sr. had not said a word. He had hardly offer a look.

-"We've arrived."

The base was huge, as you would expect from a place in collaboration with Stark Industries. A enormous hangar, two or three buildings and more sheds. There were planes on a runway and a lot of military that was agitating like ants.

Military... His father probably hoped he'd learn some discipline here. Otherwise why exile him there ?

-"I'm sorry."

-"Me too Jarvis."

And Howard entered this world that would be his for four years. This vast base in the middle of a immense desert. There was barely a bit of wind, the heat was heavy and the sand seemed to want to seep into all the pores of his skin. He regretted the comfort of the manor, the great immensity that he knew at his fingertips and which made him feel like a little boy. Here, he felt like a convict carrying out his sentence.

-"Howard Stark." A woman came forward, the welcoming committee. "I'm Dr. Wendy Lawson, but Wendy will suffice."

Wendy was a strange woman as he would later learn, her notes were always written in a strange and disjointed code that he took two and a half years to understand and decode. She, however, looked sweet and friendly, like a protective mother. A soothing aura hovered around her and she did not seem to be offended when he grimaced. Unhappy to be on the base.

-« Howard. »

-"I read your works Howard." Dr. Lawson said. "We are very happy to have you on our base, you are exactly what we need."

For the first time someone wanted him, he desired to run away. The base was huge, as he had suspected, and she was shown the part reserved for him. Wendy explained the rules with application, repeating when she knew he was no longer listening to her. It was long and out of place in a way. The laboratories did not make him feel a bit like home and he knew, that in four years, he would not remember the names of half the men he had met on the base.

Except perhaps that of Commander Robert Cypher, a stingy man who had looked at him with a palpable hatred and disdain.

-“Well, you have yet to encounter the rare gems of this project. They are my protégé, they have a great career ahead of her, much more than the idiots we've come across so far. »

She had a wacky smile, which reminded her a little of Mary. Mary who was in London. The last time he heard from her, it seemed that she enjoyed drawing Richard, it did not matter what that meant. She was happy and he is glad of it.

-"This is Carol Danvers and Maria Treadeau."

Carol and Marie were pilots or at least they were in training to be. They proudly wore the uniform and he surprised them to gauge it, looking into whether he would be at least a sexist asshole like the other men on the base or an ally. There was no doubt that the soldiers who had evaluated him at length were probably not tender when it came to women capable of doing their jobs - or even better-.

Howard had been raised differently. He had had his auntie Peg and then Mary.

-"I imagined him taller." The brunette commented on.

-"More talkative too." The blonde added with a sniff. "He shouldn't be used to having so many women around him."

"What?" He stuttered.

Carol, the blonde, had a slight laugh when she finally saw him reacting, reaching out to greet him cleanly. Far from suspecting that this would be the beginning of a long friendship. Maria looked more reserved, as if she were keeping her opinion for later, preferring to give him a trial period.

-"Soldier Danvers is training to become a pilot, Maria is her trainee mistress and a newly graduated pilot." Wendy pressed with a proud smile. "They are destined for great things."

His first week at the base was a week of adaptations. It was strange to be in this vast military base and to feel all his hateful looks. Wendy tried to be gentle and kind to him, guiding him, she showed him work already completed, tested it so that it could better be introduced into the heart of the project.

There was Goose, too. The cat tended to surprise him where he least expected it. It was terrifying in his own way, as if hiding a secret. He had never been a fan of felines, but this one, for some unknown reason, frightened him.

-"Are you afraid of Goose?" Carol asked after he was startled. "This little cat is a treasure, and he was my only friend when I arrived at the base."

-"I thought it would be Maria."

-"Oh no. Maria was transferred three months after I arrived.” Carol had a slightly nostalgic smile. "Goose was the only friend I had."

The cat meowed in agreement before purring against Carol. She smiles. A bright and stellar smile, a little strange that many men found her cold and stingy, reproaching her for wanting to do like them. He thought she was extraordinary to ignore the rumors like a sharp dagger.

-"I'm sorry."

\- "For the inerrant sexism in the military? Me too. But this is not the first time that men think they are superior to me because they were born with a different plumbing for lack of a better term.” She paused. "I just have to prove that I'm better than every one of them by going higher, further, faster than them."

-"It's a good mantra."

-"An excellent even!"

Howard laughed a little while looking at Carol. She reminded him of her auntie Peg. There was this glimmer in her eyes, that of women who never stopped fighting, the eyes of this women who changed the world by refusing to bend the knee in front of a man. The look of the women he respected without a doubt. Peggy, Ana, Mary. If she chose to stand in one place there was no one in the universe who could stop them.

-"Why are you looking at me like that Stark?"

-"You remind me of my aunt, the co-founder of the Shield."

-"I remind you of Peggy Carter."

-"Yes."

-"Thank you." Carol smiles. "If you don't like Goose, maybe I could be your friend here? Deal? »

Carol reached her hand to him, and he tighten it.

Once her friendship with Carol sealed, things became simpler. He began his work as a doctor and researcher, discovering that the aim of the PEGASUS project was to create a light-speed engine, a machine that could go faster than the speed of light.

He was asked to treat the object that could enable this miracle, the tesseract, as a living entity. A kind of organism in a vegetative state but also a terribly dangerous one that had sent the last researcher to the emergency room.

It was strange to work on an alien object, reminding him of Mary's words about plants that would have been deposited on earth by other life forms to remove the boredom of planet Earth. While he was honest, he was not enthusiastic about the idea of his lab turning into a blaze, but he loved his job.

And he had started to love the base.

He loved the idea of discovering secret passages, making bad jokes to the soldier who had earned it with the help of Carol and Maria and above all he loved them both. They were funny and they were good friends, coming out of the intellectual confusion in which Wendy Lawson always immersed him.

-"Tonight, we're going out!" Carol had fun while she was in her lab, twirling in her chair, playing with the empty try tubes. "You give me a headache with all your research. You've been here for six months, Stark, and I feel like you don't know the meaning of the word having fun. »

-"I still have a lot of... »

-"Say the word of work and I'll cut you up with...” She showed him a little scalpel. "That."

-"I won't say it, but you understand what I mean Danvers."

-"Come on!" She tried to beg. "The poncho's bar with Maria is going to be great. She's going to Louisiana to see her boyfriend Frank next week and I'm going to take my exams. I want to have one last time with my friends. »

-"Wait, you're leaving?"

Howard stopped freezing. Carol was an exceptional pilot and a talented soldier. He had seen her fly several times and she was more talented than anyone on the base. She flew with the elegance of a bird, it was as if she were the machine rather than the guide. She always said that she would join the U.S. Army once she graduated and went to war like her brother.

-"No, you moron. I'm graduating.” She had a lively laugh. "And then it's not like I can leave."

She showed her laboratory and then pointed to the rest of the facility.

-"You would blow everything up, Maria would be lost, no one would scratch Goose and it is imperative that someone put lead in the brains of her men. No, I'm too indispensable to this base. I think I'll still stay there for three or four years, gain more experience and then I'll join the U.S. Air Force. »

Howard was relieved, the fear that had invaded him quickly evaporated. Carol was her best friend here, she was liveier and funnier than Mary, she had this spirit that nothing and no one stopped like her auntie Peg. He might have fallen in love with her if he felt romantic attraction, but she was content to be an important woman in his life, with her mischievous brown eyes and bright smile.

-"Don't worry Stark, I'm not going to leave like this. So? Pancho's bar? »

Pancho's Bar was a shabby place where all the local soldiers went. There was a jukebox, alcohol, a kind of oasis in the middle of the desert. It was fun to be there, laughing with the two girls on Bon Jovi. It turned out that Carol loved rock, listing with a rare application all the bands she loved in order of her preferences. She sang false but she gave an energy worthy of the greatest rockers every time she sang. She also had a drinking alcohol to make the leader of a group of alcoholics pale.

-"You know what Starky, one day I'll be the greatest pilot in the world! I would go where no one has ever been and you will be a genius inventor! You'll create something that will revolutionize the entire universe. Deal? »

Carol laughed under the influence of alcohol as Maria danced happily to a song sweeter than her best friend's rock. Thanks to a few dozen beers, he had opened up a little more to each other, the imperfect son and the girl who wanted to do like men.

-« Deal. »

-"Cool. You really have work to do, though...” She laughs as if there really is something funny. "You don't really have a goal and it sucks not to have a goal, it's like a football game, if there's no goal, there's no point in playing the game."

-"This may be your dumbest pun Danvers" 

-"Hey! Everyone loves my puns, Starky ! »

-"We laugh because you're our friend, they're really too bad."

-"You suck!"

She drew her tongue, plunging them both into great hilarity.

Carol graduated shortly after that, with honors. She ran back to the base, her cheeks red, fingering two officers who asked her to calm down. Her smile was bright as she showed him her pilot's degree. She would die of desire to fly in the heavens, to try speed. Her enthusiasm seemed to have quickly climbed to a new level.

Unfortunately, Howard saw with disappointment how badly women pilots were treated those years. Commander Cypher refused to let her fly. The treatment was similar for Maria, who mostly had to make sure the planes were in good condition thanks to her degree in aeronautical enginee ring.

Carol was not so lucky, she had enlisted as soon as high school was over. She circled around the base like a caged lion, doing uninteresting tasks, looking at the sky with determined eyes and hating the men having the opportunity to fly. She was still trying, though.

Carol Danvers was not a woman who gave up. She always proposed and she did not take no for an answer, and even if it was the one she was given most often.

Howard had to support her several times in the year and a half after graduation. Whether it's with impromptu outings to poncho's, occupying her mind or trying to fight Commander Cypher to fly. He had even decided that the only pilots they wanted for his aerial tests were Maria Treadeau and Carol Danvers, not demoting.

-" I'm a Stark Mr. Cypher. Know that this project and this base are half funded by SHIELD and Stark Industries, which means that I am half your boss since its two instances will be mine, I would hate to have to relegate you to less interesting projects in the future because you are an obtuse person. »

Carol thanked him with a simple gift that touched him, it was a simple key ring that showed a glittering star. He would no longer walk around without, especially after she promised him that her words would not be in vain, she would fly so high that she would get a star. Howard was just happy that her friends could get the minimum recognition she deserved.

-"The engagement of Frank and Maria." Carol yelled one day as she entered her laboratory, showing her two pretty green announcement.

-"Are they engaged?" Howard as astonished.

He had only met Frank Rambeau twice in his first two years at the base. Two flash years that he had not seen passed. For him, the two soldiers were still in the phase where they got to know each other, not the stage where they decided to build a home.

The two years exploded in his face. It was like remembering why he was there originally and it was strange how much he liked the vast desert of Nevada with a cat he feared, a crazy scientist and two friendly pilots.

-"Yep. A wedding. And an engagement party. You'll have to wear a dress. »

-"You'll have to wear a dress."

-"I don't see why you couldn't wear one too." Carol shrugged. "I think it's ridiculous that there are girls' clothes and boys' clothes, it would be so much easier if fashion didn't have a gender."

-"It would be nice if society didn't care about genders." Howard confirmed by finishing to review the latest engine results, he knew they would soon hit the goal. "You'd wear a suit and you wouldn't try to convince me to put on a dress."

Carol had a slight laugh, probably trying to imagine Howard in a dress. With his little mustache and his little physique - although he became muscular during his two years at the base -he would probably look like an idiot.

-"You want to be my date? Not a romantic date, but my friendly date, my plus one.” Carol proposed in a nonchalant tone as she sat on a stool.

-"Why not? I don't have anyone to take, and you're my best friend, it almost makes sense. »

-"Did you just say I was your best friend?"

-"It made sense to me."

-"Oh my God ! Stop it ! I'm the best friend of the great Howard Stark!” Carol exclaimed, laughing in her lab. "What an honor."

-"This is the moment when you're supposed to say it's reciprocal."

-"No, Goose is my best friend."

-"It's a cat!"

-"So yes, you are my best human friend, but if I have to choose between saving Goose or you, I choose Goose."

-"This creature of the devil will save itself."

Carol laughed when she saw her sulky looks. It was a sweet conversation as they often had. Reassuring, punctuated by the lightness of their friendship, he did not know what he would do without Carol Danvers in his life. She was her ray of sunshine, a warm, bright star that roamed the earth when she always wanted to go higher, further and faster. She always wanted to join the vastness of the space where she was born.

This feeling was reinforced when he saw her at the engagement party, she wore a pretty golden satin dress that gave her the look of a fallen star under the night sky of Louisiana. The men turned with a lewd gaze into her path as he fiercely protected her from a dark look. Not that Carol can handle too heavy advances, she had already sent two officers to the infirmary this year for inappropriate words about her.

The party itself was amazing, there was a band playing saxophone and the quiet, soft music typical of Louisiana. They were in the Rambeau family home, or rather in their garden illuminated by luminous garlands. The atmosphere was sweet, calm and magical and it was probably the most beautiful party Howard had ever attended.

His mother would probably have a heart attack, as it was out of the question for her guests to wade through the mud, but in the Rambeau garden it was and it was fun.

-"You've come!" Maria, who had not seen them for a month, cried, "Great, I was so afraid you would get the invitation too late."

-"Maria?" Howard then tells him, noticing a lump on his friend’s abdomen. "Are you pregnant?"

-"Stark!" Carol hit him on the arm. "You don't ask a question like that! Maria, be honest, you just abused the cake tastings. »

Maria laughs at the confused face of the duo. It was strange to see her placed an almost protective hand on the small bump in her belly, while she confirmed she was pregnant. This probably explained her absence at the base, and the fact that she goes to the doctor so often. She was twenty-six, it wasn't shocking, but it was for the 20-year-old Carol and Howard.

-"I think it's going to be a girl."

-"You think it's going to be...” Carol squinted. "I'm too young to be Auntie Carol, even though I'm already Aunt Carol, but it's my brother JJ, it's not family. You do. »

-"I'm pretty sure if he's your brother, he's part of your family." Howard whispered before taking a blow in the ribs.

-"We're happy for you, Maria."

-"I'm so happy." The woman confirmed by waving to her future husband.

The two friends let her take care of her guests, it was a nice evening, full of smiles and love. It was beautiful to see two people love each other like this and it was also strange. Howard had not stopped questioning himself and his future. His last two years had passed so quickly and he hoped that time would pass more slowly for the next two. He knew that his truce would end and that he would have to take the paths of Stark Industries in New York.

What would become of him? Should he start a family? Should he perpetuate the Stark lineage? What would he do? He wasn't sure. He loved the PEGASUS project, he loved living at the base, he liked to run away from Goose, decoded Wendy's strange gibberish, laugh with Maria and Carol.

-"What are you thinking?"

-"Future."

-" Beurk. Don't tell me you want to find a woman to have... All of it.” Carol said of a slightly sickening look. "I mean it's good, but... I don't know, it's... Weird. »

-"We're young."

-"We are young geniuses." The blonde confirmed with a mine lost between humor and affliction, chaining a new shot of alcohol, she drank too much to be in a state of euphoria or even just happiness.

-"I couldn't have that future." Howard admitted with a slightly dark look. "I don't fall in love."

-“Wait, I thought the of the press was wrong. Howard Stark, did you manipulate me for two years to get me to end up in your bed? »

He raised an eyebrow, amused by Carol's attempt to make him laugh.

-"I don't fall in love, I don't feel any romantic attraction, for anyone. I never had a crush on anyone and I would never have it. »

Carol looked at him this time with a serious air and put her hand on his. It was strangely comforting and it was not pity, it was to say, "I understand." She understood and there she was, looking at him and offering him her unfailing friendship. It was better than when Mary found out, her friend had gone into elucidations that only she could understand.

-"I'm in love with Maria." She whispered as if it were a secret. "It's horrible to be there and learn that she's getting married and having a baby."

Howard widened his eyes and put his hand on his own, offering him the same comfort. It made so much sense. Maria and Carol's bond. The way the blonde looked at the brunette, the way her face lit up, the way she fought for her. It made so much sense.

It was so sad.

They were under the stars in Louisiana contemplating what none of them would ever have. And in a sense, he knew that they had won something else, the unwavering proof of their friendship and mutual trust. Carol had entrusted him with her greatest secret, Howard too.

That night, none of them knew by what miracle they had been able to return to the hotel. Mary confided to them that they were so drunk that they could not take a step without bursting into laughter.

There was less laughter at the base once Maria's maternity leave was launched. Carol was often sad and dreary, and she continued to fight fiercely with Commander Cypher to fly like men. Howard tried to console her, but his work was finally successful, he felt that the Light-speed motor was not just a guess and he understood the tesseract better and better.

-"It's good that you and Carol found yourself." Wendy Lawson once told him.

He watched the rain fall on the desert, he had been there for almost three years, and it was in the next day that Maria was to give birth to her little girl. She had planned to call her Monica after her letters and she was already a little princess pampered by her parents before she had even been born. Howard had wondered if his parents were so ecstatic at the thought of his birth. Part of him knew that he did, but that they did not know how to do it and that they had given up to offer him affection differently.

-"You evolve together, and you pull each other up. It's a sincere friendship that you've managed to forge. »

-"Carol will be leaving soon, too." He admitted in a whisper. "Our paths will separate, and my life will be... Sad. »

-"Life is not sad to the one who gives himself the chance to bring the sun." The woman next to him philosophized. "Your own path does not have to be far from Carol's, after all, you are in control of your destiny and it is up to you to choose where you are going."

-"I rarely had a choice."

-"Then create them. The choices, the opportunities, don't let anyone tell you what to do. Carol and Maria are exemplary on this point. No one ever told them what to do. »

His auntie Peg had the same words when he visited his family for Thanksgiving. It seemed that the tone was rising so much between Howard Sr and her that they only saw each other for work, but he had taken the time to visit her. She made him promise to choose his path and not the one Howard Sr would choose for him.

He had time to think. Wondering what he wanted to do with his life at the end of his four years in Nevada. How his long years had changed him. He was confused and lost. He did not want to be the head of Stark Industries or at least not of that Stark Industries that sold weapons and did not use its knowledge and innovation to make a difference.

It was strange how the women in his life had led him to always question himself and this time he wondered, "How am I going to change things to create a better future?" He knew that he would have to fly Danvers, that he would have to create a beautiful future for Maria's daughter. He knew he wanted them in his life. He knew he wanted to chase away the rain, create something that would save the universe.

Not the ever-expanding universe in which he lived. His univers.

He was convinced that the others, this people who believed the trash that had taken him to Nevada as well as those who wrote them, did not deserve him to put his genius at their service.

His decision was made at Maria's wedding. He was sitting next to Carol who was wearing a pretty lavender dress as she imitated a smile. Little Monica had at least had the privilege of surrounding her around her finger. He was going to create his own path, rebuilding Stark Industries in his own image.

He would continue to surround herself with Maria and Carol, and he would build a better world for little Monica, a world where she could be what she wants. Maybe he'd even go to England to see Mary. It would be a beautiful world that he would create.

-"You bet how much this girl is trying to bring the waiter home” Carol told her that the dance floor was packed. "It's indecent."

-"Yes indecent." He confirmed by drinking his glass of water.

Carol slammed his fingers in front of him coming out of a torpor of which he had not realized to be.

-"Hey Starky, you're somewhere else tonight. Reconnect. »

-"Sorry, I was thinking about the future."

-"Future ?"

-"What I would do next."

-"And what will you do?"

-"Mystery Danvers." He smiles.

-"At least I know that this mystery does not imply that you accept the heavy favors of a girl who has drunk too much."

The girl in question was circling like a shark around the waiter the gratifying wink, and subjective mouth movement.

-"I'd like to know why everyone is so obsessed with sex. I mean, I understand, but at the same time, I don't understand what drives two complete strangers to past a night together.” Carol continued, placing her head against her hand, her nose was slightly rosy, a sign that she had still been drinking a lot.

-"I don't know either."

-"What if we did."

-"Do what?"

-"Sleeping together. I mean there would really be no ambiguity. »

Howard frowned unconvinced by the meagre argument.

-"Think of it as a test. If it happens you have no romantic attraction but maybe just sexual and I would see if there is a chance to have ... All of it. »

-"The baby, the marriage, the house and the ideal husband."

-« Eurk. »

\- "Bad idea Danvers. We're going to stay where we're at. »

With a lot of alcohol, the time was not about thinking the future or how they are unconventional. No, they were drawn into the frenzy of marriage. They danced like children together and with complete strangers. They twirled with a laugh.

They were still happy for a brief moment, greeting Maria and her husband in the night and walking to their hotel when the party was over. Carol would make the world again and talk to her about aviation and the sky with her usual passion. She complained of the asphalt too hot against her feet and a slight headache that must have been immense as her steps were not straight.

Howard himself oscillated between a need to vomit and an exhilarating euphoria.

-"What if we did it?" He ends up saying a few meters from the hotel. "The test you were proposing."

\- "Sleeping together?"

-"Yeah that."

-"Well, Dr. Stark, let's go."

She pulled him by the hand in the hotel and like their friendship, it was blurry, messy and there was a lot of laughter because none of them knew what to expect. It was strange and surprisingly satisfying although Howard was convinced that sex was like romance, something he would leave out in his life. It was nice, but he didn't feel any sexual attraction.

Carol was happy, she said she really loved women, but sex was really a few things she loved, leaving her relaxed and smiling.

The next morning was blurry as the days after. Their friendship a little more clumsy, especially because both hung that there would be discomfort. It took an evening at Pancho's to realize that in reality, everyone was happy with what they had learned during this experiment and they laughed at it while listening to AC/DC.

It could have been one of his anecdotes that were told at parties, years later with humour. In fact, they had the impression that this would be the case, a small adventure in the adventure of their friendship. Until this becomes more important and more serious.

-"Hey Howard!" Carol had said when she entered her lab, she would call him by his first name when she needed something, quite strange.

-"What's going on Danvers?" 

-"Remember how we made fun of the ideal future? House, wedding and baby? »

-"What? Is Maria pregnant again? »

-"Nop." Her best friend tells her, looking over her research. "But I am."

"What are you?"

-"Surprise. Honestly, you must have super sperm, but that's not the point of my visit. What are we going to do? »

-"We... You... »

"Yeah, it shocked me too."

-"Pregnant?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The longest chapter of the series. Yeah Carol Danvers will be Toni's mom. For those who ask, she'll be born in december 1982.


	6. A new invention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pregnancy of Carol through Howard.

Howard Stark was in his aunt Peg's red corvette; it was strange to be sitting there at the age of twenty-two and feeling like an eight-year-old boy who had done a big mistake. He may have made one, although he was convinced that in a way it was not so much an unfortunate mistake but also an opportunity that he would probably never have again.

-"The question right now is whether we are keeping the baby or whether... if I have an abortion.” Carol said in a slow voice sitting on her bunk at the base.

He had rarely seen her so confused. She was always very determined, even impulsive. It seemed that nothing could ever shake her, but this baby growing in her, that little thing they had conceived had brought her out of her entrenchments and left her in constant questioning. Threw them in constant questioning.

Howard didn't know if he wanted this baby or not, not when he was so close to going back to his previous life. It had been four years and he could theoretically pick up what he had before when he left off at the base. That strange life that would lead him to become CEO of Stark Industries. A position he wanted on his terms, conditions that he could not negotiate, because he had made a mistake at the last moment.

If the press found out... He shuddered. His father couldn't stand it. And he couldn't stand it either, because that mistake had allowed him to create something. Did he want this invention? This baby?

He passed his hands through his hair, confused.

"Hey Howard, what's going on in your head? I hadn't seen you so agitated since... I don't think I've ever seen you so agitated.” His auntie Peg cared.

She was the one who came to pick him up. Jarvis was already taking his parents at the airport, a trip to Singapore had come at the last minute and Peggy had agreed to go on the base. She missed her godson and as her retirement from SHIELD would soon occur, she was trying to see what her life would be like without a fight. A life where she would devote herself only to her family.

-"I have... I invented something by making a mistake and I don't know... I don't know if I should keep this invention or... or abandon it... or destroy it. »

-"Is this an invention you can be proud of?"

A child, Howard had once said to himself, probably after Mary's departure and her elucidations about a potential son named Peter Parker that if he had children, he would not be like Howard Sr. He would be proud of them no matter what path they take. He'd be proud of that little life inside Carol, for sure, but was he proud of him for that? It was a different story.

-"From the invention itself yes, from me, probably not."

-"Do you think you can still assume to have created this... thing? »

Could he take care of a child? Howard thought he could do it. Maybe he had thought about one or two things as they talked to Carol about what to do if they agreed to have that child, as they had analyzed the other two possibilities.

The truth is that Howard knew that even though at the moment he was not sure if he was a good father to this child, he was convinced that he could learn, and he would not give up, even without Carol's help, he wanted to do so. The remaining body was Carol's body, so it was also limited to the possibility that she would decide that this invention would never see the light of day.

-"Yes." Eventually answer howard to his aunt Peg.

-"Are you afraid of what others might think?"

-"I'm terrified."

-"You know Howard that people will always tell you what to say, what to do, what to think." His aunt started in a sigh. "The truth is that no one will ever be entirely satisfied with your words, your actions or your decisions, but in the end, at the very end, you will only be accountable to yourself, so make that choice for yourself, no matter how scared you are."

Howard looked at her with his black eyes to marvel. After all his years, Aunt Peg was there to give him her best advice, to be present for him.

-"I wouldn't abandon you." Peg then said to him, placing a hand on his own, with a tender smile, continuing to look at the road.

-"You don't even know what... »

-"Howard, you look a lot like your father, even if you think otherwise. There's the same fear in your eyes as when your mother got pregnant.” She paused. "I don't see you creating a weapon of mass destruction."

-"Carol, the mother, she doesn't know if she wants to keep it or not, but that's her decision in the end."

-"I'm proud of you." Her tone was that of a mother who realized that her son had become everything she wanted him to become. "Apart from Daniel, I know very few men who would understand that it is not up to them to decide whether to keep the baby or not."

Howard smiled a little vaguely before watching the landscape change out the window.

Carol decided to keep the baby. She determined that she did not know if she wanted to be her mother, but Howard told her that he would be the father in any case. The blonde was terrified that it would affect her career, she wanted to fly, she was only twenty-one years old, and she was afraid that this child would change her life and that she would regret it in the future.

Howard reassured her at length, assuring her that he would not be mad at her for not getting involved and being just Aunt Carol. It was strange to be immersed in an adult life that he frankly dreaded before receiving news so nonchalantly. Carol told her that she had never been more frightened than when she realized that this baby could earn her career.

Wendy Lawson was quite understanding, she had only raised an eyebrow with curiosity and had understood the situation almost too well. She had explained that Carol's flights were suspended and it was finally Maria who returned from her maternity leave who would resume her missions. Maria had been surprised and laughed at their situation when she realized that Carol and Howard were not ready to have romantic feelings for each other.

"It can only be well turned; this baby is very lucky." Laughs again Marihas.

"I don't see what's so funny."

-"You are the best friends in the world, to the point that you have a baby together without any ambiguity in your relationship, you clearly have the best arrangements to take care of a child." Maria wiped tears from the edge of her eyes. "I mean, independently I have no doubt that you would make a good parent, but together... Incredible. »

"I don't know if you're making fun of us or if it's a compliment." Ends by slicing Carol by frowning.

"It's a compliment, really." Confirmed the brunette while keeping her smile. "Besides, wouldn't you try to see what you're worth by keeping Monica one night?"

-"Is this a messy plan to have a quiet night with Franck?" Asked Howard, frowning with his arms on his chest.

"Yes, but it benefits us all."

It was a disaster.

Howard collapsed on the couch once six-month-old Monica fell asleep after making the intrepid duo had an hard time. The little girl seemed to really want her parents and had been in tears for several minutes that were endless.

-"We really did it." Carol admitted by placing a hand on her belly. "But it was... »

-"Intense? Fortunately we found his weak spot. »

-"Who would have thought that a baby would stop crying when he heard you play the piano?"

-"Who would have thought that my piano lessons with my mother would finally have a use?"

Carol had a slight laugh as they were in a kind of organized mess, the awakening mat was out, toys were scattered all over the living room. There were bottle scraps and an aborted attempt at a small pot of carrots.

"Did you tell your parents about it?" Carol ends by questioning. "My people have never looked so disappointed, I almost consider it a victory. I must believe that I would never be a perfect, tidy girl as he wishes. »

-"I... I'm still waiting to find out what to say to my father.” Howard explained cautiously. "You know originally, I had to work at the base to make me forget, he gave me four years and then I could join Stark Industries by making clean of all the bad rumors on my account."

-"And you come back four years later by doing worse than all the false rumors put together, you have a child out of wedlock with a woman you never intend to marry and with whom you will raise him in a pure friendly partnership thus destroying the perfect pattern of the American family."

-"That's a good summary."

Carol shrugged. She was impervious to the opinion of others about herself, she did what she thought was right for her, doing what others expected of her. He smiled happy to have a child with her rather than with another woman, at least there was no doubt that if his child was a girl, she would be a strong woman like Carol, Peggy or Mary.

-"I'm going to do what's right for her, no matter what my father thinks."

-"Her?"

-"Her." He confirmed that Carol nodded rather in agreement with his feeling.

-"We'll do our best for her." The blonde confirmed then with a dreamy look. "Could we call her Antonia?"

-"That's not the name of... »

-' Yes.'

Howard nodded in agreement. There was little anyone Carol respected and loved. She preferred to get rid of people who could make her feel like she had something to prove. Thus, her inner circle consisted of himself, Wendy, Maria and at home in the Boston area, there was her former sports teacher Mr. Connors and his daughters: Gracie and Antonia. There was Antonia, past, she had died shortly after Maria's wedding has an incurable disease, after years of fighting and her dreams realized.

If their daughter could have the name of a strong woman, then he would never say no.

Howard would have liked to be a strong woman the day he faced his father, be Peggy or Carol. He was coming out of an ultrasound meeting, beating heart sound of his future little girl in his ears -or boy, but he was so convinced that his baby would be a girl-. He was lulled by this melody to give him the courage to establish his positions for once and forever.

He entered Stark Manor, still empty and ghostly, but this time he refused to feel like a terrified six-year-old to show his motor, to be a child anxious to please. He refused to be a child punished for acts he had not committed, or simply to feel trapped in a spiral that was named future and of which he had no control.

Today Howard Stark was going to fight, not as a hero, but as a father who wanted the best for his child. Perhaps it was at this time that he understood his parents and their desire to build the perfect world for him to show the love he could not give him as other parents do.

Maria and Howard Sr were in the living room, each vacant to a different occupation, respectively drawing up a table plan and reading the newspapers while smoking. It was strange to see them there, together, when they had almost been separate entities during Howard's childhood. He rarely saw them together, and yet they were there.

"Howard! My darling. It's been so long, it's a surprise visit.” Maria enthused as she stood up to greet her, kissing her on the cheek. "How are you? Are you doing well in Nevada? Your father told me that you extended your time to an extra year, you know you'll have to go back to New York one day. »

"Mother, I'm not going back to New York."

And for the first time in his life, he saw his mother confused, of the sheer confusion that distorted his features in a certain way.

-"Of course, you're going back to New York." Howard Sr laughs as if it were a joke. "You need to be able to learn the ins and outs of Stark Industries."

Howard Jr took a deep breath looking grave. He made his mother sit down and crashed in front of both his parents. He took Peggy's example, his straight back, his chin up, and he tried to be strong on his convictions. For once, it wasn't hard, perhaps because it wasn't for him that he was fighting, but for someone more important.

-"I wouldn't go back to New York, I... I thought I could learn everything about the company from California in reality. »

-"But the head office is in New York." Howard Sr annoyed himself, his face becoming that impenetrable neutral anger mask that terrified the six-year-old boy with his motor.

"I have something to tell you." Howard continued, taking another deep breath. "I made a mistake, but I think this mistake will lead to the most beautiful creation of my life. I am going to be a father and I want to get involved in my child's life. »

-"You’re going to be a father?" Howard Sr then got angry as he got up, the newspaper falling to the ground in a dry noise. “You had to behave properly for four years! Was it too much to ask? A child! What will a future CEO do with a child!? Do you realize what that means? »

"I realize that! Otherwise, I wouldn't be in front of you!” Howard cried for the first time in his life, looking his father straight in the eye. "I want to be there for this child! I want to build her an ideal future, a future where she will be happy! I want to be a good father to this baby, and I want her to be proud to take over Stark Industries one day because she'll be a Stark! I am ready to take all the necessary responsibilities and even more to have a happy, fulfilled and healthy child! »

Howard Sr fell silent by staring at him with an angry finger as Maria whispered the baby word as if she were not sure she understood. He was just twenty-two years old, it was almost inconceivable to a male CEO, perhaps one reason why his father had him so late.

-"A baby Howard." His father yelled again.

But the young man continued to look his father in the eye without fail. Perhaps Howard Sr realized that this was the first time his son looked like a real Stark as he walked to the bar and served himself a glass of whiskey.

-"Good."

-"Good?"

-"Good. If you're willing to take on all your responsibilities, one month after the birth of this baby you can join Stark Industries under my guidance. Obadiah will stay in New York and I'll fly back and forth. The social season moves to California, isn't it darling ? »

-"That's right."

-"Good." Says Howard Stark Sr. "We will do this, does that suit you?"

Howard knew his father was angry. He had heard him with Obadiah and he had heard a phrase that prompted him to want to protect his child even more: "Howard will never be a good CEO of Stark Industries, but a good father, I have no doubt, so maybe he can create the future, the future of the company, and I would help him. It's my blood and I've spent too much time neglecting it. ».

It was as disturbing as it was reassuring.

The California mansion began to be re-developed. It was smaller and the nature was wild. Carol settled there in her sixth month of pregnancy with a kind of self-loathing. The young woman hated being cared fiercely, she pestered when a servant tried to do something for her, and took a clever pleasure in rejecting ideas of housekeeper or nanny.

Maria was also amused, seeming to take her duty as a future grandmother more seriously than as a mother. She appreciated Carol for her quick wit, and her rather passionate character. Howard Sr remained marbled, but he seemed to have seen him flash a smile when he saw the third trimester echography, revealing a perfectly healthy little girl.

-"This is probably the last time we will be able to see the stars."

It was mid-November and it was really getting cold, Carol had insisted on taking thick blankets and looking at the sky for the last time before the winter frozen. Antonia was a perennial baby and Carol's belly was as round as a planet, not that Howard would dare say that in front of her, he cared too much about life.

-"We finally succeeded." Carol laughs after a long moment of silence as she stared at the sky illuminated by a thousand constellations.

-"Successful in doing what?"

-"To become adults as we feared but according to our conditions. You're going to join Stark Industries to try to build a better world, I'm going to get my job back to base and we're going to have a little girl who's probably going to be pampered by her grandmother. »

-"I can't believe she volunteered to be her feeder with Jarvis while we're working."

-"We have the most strangely dysfunctional family in the world." Carol confirm. "I mean, we're literally two best friends raising a baby."

-"It looks like a sitcom start."

Antonia arrived on December 21, 1982. It was snowing that day, big flakes were falling like icing sugar on the world, while Carol Danvers used her entire repertoire of insults to curse her best friend Howard Stark. It took almost six hours, a lot of shouting and supplication, a splint for Howard and a growing stress in everyone who was waiting for the little girl to be born for the baby to decide to show his little nose all round.

Howard sobbed as he held his little girl for the first time in his arms, she was so beautiful despite her red skin and slightly wrinkled. She looked like him, a thick tuft of black hair on her head, nose, and eye shape, she had none of Carol but impressive vocal strength and the singular color of her eyes.

-"She's so beautiful." Carol said holding her in her arms for the first time, shaking her little hand. "Hello Antonia."

-"We did well."

-"I did well."

-"You broke my wrist."

-"Do you want to be compared with the pain I have felt in the last six hours?" She aggressively whispered so as not to frighten the little girl.

Antonia was a quiet, sweet little girl that everyone seemed to love. She chirped quietly, looking curiously at the world when she was awake. Howard Sr even showed a happiness-like emotion when he first saw his grandchild, while Maria sobbed on Peggy's shoulder. 

Howard was not convinced of much, but with Antonia in his arms, he was convinced that he had created the most incredible invention in the universe.

-"You're going to see my baby, you're going to be amazing." He whispered as Carol was asleep and they were the only two awake in the hospital room. "The world will be yours, no, the whole universe. And you're going to be a real Stark, you're not going to kneel in front of anyone, and a real Danvers like your mom, you're going to go higher, further and faster than anyone ever will. »

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... Carol and Howard are little Toni's parents and Howard finally draw his own future. That was a long journey for him but he's finally happy. Until...


	7. An extraordinary little girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard, Carol & Toni until the disappearance of Carol.

Howard Stark knew one thing for sure about his little girl, she was extraordinary. That was probably all the fathers would say about their little girl, but he found it to be a general truth in Antonia's case. There was something about her that made her different and unique.

Her brown eyes, with the same golden glow as Carol's, shone with endless curiosity as if she were planning to discover the secrets of the universe. And this, even if she regurgitated her milk on Howard's work shirts or if she drooled over Carol's work.

The balance of their little family was strange, but fun. Maria and Jarvis looked after the little girl when her parents were at work, they were surprised when she first managed a developmental game, her brown eyes squinting slightly when asked to do it again. She did it before making bubbles with her mouth and laughing about it.

Carol sometimes took Antonia to the base when she didn't have a lot of work. The Commander Cypher could not say anything, Maria did too. Goose was Antonia's favorite playmate, she was ecstatic in front of the cat, clapping her hands and it seemed that the little red-haired creature was very protective of the little girl. Wendy loved her, too.

"There is the glow of the stars in her eyes." Wendy had once told both parents. "She's a really special little girl."

Antonia wasn't talking yet, but she had clapped her hands, tweeting like every time she thanked someone. Howard operated half with his father, half from home, working his drawings and inventions with his little girl on his lap. Antonia always seemed to look at them carefully, as if she wanted to understand them.

-"Oh no little princess, it's not for you." Then his father tells her with a smile. "And I hope it won't be, if one day you have a Stark weapon in your hands, it's because I failed somewhere."

The little girl spoke early, it was no surprise. It happened in the living room of the California mansion, Antonia was crawling happily as she pursued Goose. He had infiltrated Carol's car on Friday, so he was staying with the Starks for the Weekend.

Howard Sr read the newspaper with an eye on the little grave, Maria embroidered, Carol and Howard debated the continuation of the PEGASUS project with very bad jokes.

-"Goose." The little girl said once she had caught the little cat. "Goose."

-"Did she just say her first word?" Howard was surprised by failing to let go of the plans he was holding while Carol was laughing. "Did she just say the name of that cat filth?"

Goose purred as Antonia tried to stroke him properly, she gave a few blows with her baby fists, but the creature didn't seem to care.

-"She's early." Howard Sr confided without leaving his diary of his eyes. "Very early."

Far ahead was a meagre term to describe Antonia's intelligence. She spoke almost too quickly after being able to pronounce the name of the cat she was so fond of. She was a little genius who seemed to understand everything too quickly, she dismantled one of her toys at the age of three and brought it up to perfection. She seemed to be interested in everything, showing an infallible curiosity.

-"She snuck into my lab?" One night, Howard laughed at Carol. "She had made one cushion floor that she dragged from the living room, she climbed on a stool and she started assembling pieces."

-"What?"

-"And I explained how it worked, how it fit together, she understood everything." Howard was amazed with the proud glow of a father. "She's a little genius."

-"And a little girl too." Carol recalled. "Should I remind you that she writes on the walls, that she refuses to wear anything other than that awful tutu Maria gave her, and that you can't separate her from her pig-plush without her screaming to death."

-"We have to protect that." Howard confirmed. "But you can't limit your genius either."

-"We can try to make this look like games and continue to do children's activities with her." Carol continued. "I also have the dates for my captain's exam, in two months."

-"What about Maria?"

-" She wants to focus on Monica, Franck's death... it's still too recent. »

Franck had died shortly before Antonia's third birthday, who was now insisting on calling herself Toni, four months ago. His plane had exploded during a reconnaissance mission and he had not survived. Maria had been deeply shaken but resilient as she was, she held on for Monica with Carol's help and support.

It was sad and it had helped them to realize what was important, for both of them it was to be Toni's happiness and safety. Their little girl too smart with big curious eyes.

-"I'm sure you'll pass with honors." Howard promised with a quiet smile. "And Toni can be proud of her mom."

"She will always be proud of her mother." Carol laughs but less sincerely than usual. "Sometimes I'd like to be up there... »

-"In the stars?"

-"Yes." Carol admitted with a serious tone. "I love this life and sometimes... sometimes I feel locked up, I'm Toni's mother and I'm proud of it, but just... I wish... I'd like to be Carol Danvers just once again. »

-"I understand."

Howard knew Carol wasn't like him. Toni was all her life now and her life oscillated between offering her a perfect world and giving her a perfect childhood. For the blonde it was different, she had a need to be jostled, freedom, constant challenges. Carol was lively and pugnacious always wanting to push the boundaries. She had already sacrificed a great deal for Toni without ever complaining or expressing it out loud. There had been a post at the U.S. Air Force at a base on the islands in particular, Carol had seemed to tear up.

-"Does that make me a bad mother?"

-"No Carol." Howard reassured her. "That makes you human."

A human being with an extraordinary child.

A week before Carol's captain's exam, Toni astonished the rest of the family. She wore her favorite tutu, blue with stars, her brown hair dressed in two adorable little braids and her pink pig in her hands, she also had something else. A circuit board.

Father and son had been trying for weeks to reduce the circuit boards in some of their weapons to make them lighter and more enjoyable. They had angered themself to make it work, wiping many and many failures. And Toni stood there, with a small circuit board as small as he had hoped, a bright smile on her lips.

-"Look Dad, I managed to reproduce the drawing that you and Grandfather did, and it works really well."

Howard Sr dropped his newspaper on the carpet before bursting into laughter, grabbing his granddaughter to guide her to his office. Howard on his heels. Not only had her little little girl prodigy succeeded where the two men had failed, but with a calm and calm speech, punctuated by little zoning and childish distraction, she managed to explain their mistakes to them.

-"Could I have an extra cookie?" She asked with puppy eyes.

-"Toni, you can have all the cookies in the world." Howard Sr smiles, seeming more than blowing by the little girl's intelligence.

-"Toni, only one more." Howard promised, looking at his father with a dark look. "Your mom wouldn't be happy if you get to much sugar.”

Toni had a slight pout probably preferring his grandfather's version. She abandoned them after the third time she had to explain to them that she had reversed the flow, preferring to go play outside with her dolls rather than listen to them again. It was fun to see how she was still so childish.

-"She is the future of Stark Industries. You realize that Howard.” Howard Sr ended up by saying, putting a hand over his face. "She can't even read perfectly yet."

-"But she is able to spot all the stars in the sky."

-"She still enjoys making bubbles with her mouth."

"And she is able to beat us both when we are adults with several doctorates." Howard sighed. "There's no way she's going through the same thing as me, she's an amazing little girl and there's no way she's going to be exploited."

-"Then we shall have to use miracles to protect her." Howard Sr concluded, he looked kind of sorry of his bad parenting through Howard childhood. "I would not let what happened with you happen again for her."

-"You love her."

-"This is your most beautiful Creation Howard, just like you are mine."

It took Howard several days to recover from this statement. His father, who had never told him to love him, who had been cold, distant, calculating, reluctant to do good, had just told him in his own way that he loved him. It had taken twenty-five years and the birth of little Toni.

Little Toni, who kept impressing him, she helped him to build little things, her nimble little fingers worked quickly as she seemed to be moving more and more towards robotics and computer science.

Howard Sr had given her a state-of-the-art robot to congratulate her on her work with the circuit board and she happily dismantled it to improve it. She just regretted that her robot couldn't learn to play with her any other way. It was programmed and it was already frustrated little Toni. Howard did not doubt that she would ever revolutionize the field of AI, but for now she was four years old.

And she had found another occupation. She was making a small plane on the set to give it to her mother when she had the results of her test to become a Captain. There was no doubt that she would succeed, so it was no surprise to anyone when Carol came back with the famous diploma and a bright smile.

Unfortunately the plane was not finished on the right date and Toni never had the opportunity to give it to Carol.

The funeral was a terrible thing to live for both Howard and Toni.

It was a wet and rainy day. They had made the trip to New Hope, a small town on the outskirts of Boston where Carol had grown up. There were few people, but only esteemed one and Carol's family. Howard Sr was present as well as Jarvis and Maria paying a small tribute to the one who gave birth to Toni.

Carol's parents stood aside with a closed mine, trying to figure out when their daughter might become friends with the Starks. JJ Danvers happened to be an idiot as Carol had always described him and her father a cold, bitter man gnawed with bitterness.

Maria was crying, not sure she could recover from the death of her best friend after the death of her husband, and Wendy Lawson’s one, who had guided her as soon as she arrived at the base. Her grandmother Amma Treadeau held her in tears as Howard clutched a sobbing Toni against his chest, protecting her from the world with his body.

The news came suddenly. It was a mission done at the last moment. Wendy had stolen the research on the PEGASUS project, without telling anyone, she needed a pilot and had taken Carol on her mission. They were shot down in the sky by unidentified planes, there was nothing left in the rubble, not even a corpse, the superluminous engine had exploded, taking everything in its path, there was nothing, not even a corpse to put underground.

-"Daddy." The little girl sobbed in Howard's arms. "Dad."

-"Hush Toni, I promise you it's going to be okay."

-"I want Mommy." Toni cried.

-"I know, baby, I know." He hugged her a little harder.

Howard tried not to cry, looking at the stone engraved under the name carol Danvers. His best friend. This girl who had offered him her friendship when he thought he was in a spiral of misfortune. His heart broke because she would never go higher, further, faster than the others. Her ambition flouted.

-"She fell asleep with grief, poor baby." Maria sighed as she approached her little girl and hugged her. "She's so small, so young, it's horrible."

-"Carol was still young too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes Carol disappears. She will be for only 3 years instead of 6 because of Toni and the timeline. For reminder Toni is born in 1982, I wanted her to remember her mother so Carol disappears in 1986 and she'll be back in 1989.


	8. A bright future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carol came back.

Howard spent a year trying to find out what had happened on that sad day in May. He sought the records, analyzed the carcass, searched again and again for the black box in the hope of finding a clue as to what might have happened.

The engine had not exploded in mid-air, and with the alloy around it, it was impossible for a weapon - even a Stark weapon - to damage the Light-Speed engine until the explosion. There was nothing logical about Carol's attack, nor the simplicity of the day, nor the testimony, much less Wendy Lawson's behavior.

He had gone crazy trying to decode his gibberish, but it was nothing he had learned in the four years at her side, it was more complex. People had diagnosed her as crazy; Howard was convinced that there was a mystery that he had not understood and that he would never understand.

The most affected, however, was not Howard, but Toni. The little girl had long cried for her mother and had even destroyed the plane she had built. She had smashed it with a hammer, crying, wasting almost three months of work. It had been difficult to make her smile, despite the good attentions of everyone and her childish mind could not assimilate that her mother would never return.

Maria Stark had explained that she was in heaven. Toni had simply said that the sky was her mother's domain and that it was enough to wait for her to come down. It was a nice vision if we forgot that death is something irreversible.

-"Toni, it's late princess, it's time to go to sleep." Howard sighed at length, it had been a year and the little girl was staring at the starry sky every night.

-"I'm five and a half, I can stand a little longer, I'm a big girl now."

-"You stayed out of bed much later than a ten-year-old girl would, now it's bedtime."

-"I'm not tired."

Her body betrayed her, her eyelids beat too fast and she yawned heavily. Toni was smart enough not to argue more and placed herself in bed, her tutu was hanging on a coat rack and she clutched her little pink pig who had lost at least two shades. It was strange to see her grow up like that, strange to look her in the eye and see Carol there.

Toni was the portrait of her father, she had the genius of the Starks, but she remained firmly similar to Carol, she always stood up, she made her opinion heard as a little girl. She was passionate, resilient, and pugnacious.

-"Dad?" The little girl questioned her in a small voice. "How did you meet Mom?"

Howard sat down on his daughter's bed, gently bordering her, removing her hair from her eyes.

-"Your mom was my first friend when I left MIT." Howard gently pointed to his daughter. "Basically, it could have been Goose, but I think this cat is evil."

-"Is it because he can get tentacles out with his mouth?"

Howard laughs. While Toni frowned, confused. She seemed convinced that Goose was some kind of alien cat. It was one of her innocence through that he loved about her.

-"Yes, that's why." She smiles at the father as he caresses her cheek tenderly. "You know little princess, even if your mom is not able to be there, she is... always there in your heart. »

-"And in the stars." The little girl said.

-"In the stars, she’s the one who shines the most."

Toni nodded confirming his remarks before beginning to fall asleep peacefully. Howard bordering her gently watching her sleep.

Toni began to get softer, she moved time at Monica's playing like a real little girl in the grass, laughing in the mud. She always seemed lost and confused when she didn't have her little pink pig with her, but overall she was much better. Her overflowing imagination seemed to have returned to her and she had decided, now that she knew how to write, to code her own artificial intelligence.

It was strange to see her so focused sitting on a large stool that she was climbing surrounded by small cushions. She coded most of the time, asked her father when she had a problem or her grandfather, but most of the time she worked hard, her tongue came out of her mouth when she was in an extremely concentrated state. Her skin was always in contact with her stuffed animal, refusing even to get away from it a little.

It was cute and at the same time disturbing. Toni was the future. And the future of Stark Industries was weapons. Terribly ugly objects that would for sure stain his candid innocence. The more time passed, the more he wanted to shout at the worlds that the Starks should not make weapons and that they should never continue to make them.

That was why, when she was seven-and-a-half, Howard went to his father's office. There was Obadiah present as a cerberus with a bitter smile. Toni's birth seemed to have thwarted all his plans when she seemed to be the focus of all the discussions. For Howard, there was no doubt that Obadiah somehow intended to remove him from the Stark Industries equation, too greedy and envious, he wanted the work of the Starks.

-"We need to open up the company to other technologies." Howard ended by saying during the discussion. "Weapons are our past, but we really have the opportunity to change the future and is violence the legacy we want to leave?"

-"Protection." Stane corrected with a stern air. "We are protecting our country."

-"And we could do more, we have intelligence and resources!" Howard closed his eyes before taking a deep breath. "As my father keeps saying, Toni will probably take over Stark Industries one day, I won't let her take over a business that sells guns."

-"Not that this little girl is the shoulders one day to do it." Stane said.

-"Stane!" Howard growled Sr massaging his temples. "This little girl has allowed us to double our numbers of sales thanks to the minimized circuit, if anyone has the shoulders to do everything, it's definitely her."

Howard had a proud smile, slightly bulging his torso. Her little Toni and her innocent genius. She barely suspected that she was smarter than everyone else, she was convinced that everyone knew how to do like her.

-"We could start small so as not to worry investors, we can't give up arms like that, but I have a lot of old creations that are worth coming out."

\- "Investors are not already very enthusiastic that it is a girl who can one day take over Stark Industries, we could lose their support and that of the board." Stane grinded.

-"What is the difference between a girl and a boy? She's a Stark, a Stark genius, that's the only thing that should count Stane, I should change the board if that really becomes a problem.” Howard Sr intervened with an incisive tone. "Second, as long as we maintain a growing pattern of sales, I don't understand why we should limit ourselves to weapons."

Howard won and a few months later Forbes published an article about the power of the Starks and how a welcome new lease of life was blowing over the company, soon allowing it to become even more influential than it was through.

Obadiah had to shut up after that, getting darker and darker, but it was not a real worry. He growled more than he acted, and no one could hurt Toni, not that anyone would let anything happen to her. Peggy taught her fighting moves by making it look like games where she had to save the world like heroine princesses.

It was shortly before May 1989 that Toni managed to build his first artificial intelligence, a clumsy but useful creature that learned quickly enough. He had a strange obsession with fire extinguishers, he put motor oil in the coffee and always wanted to hold fragile objects. She called him Dum-E, and he was still helping her in the lab when her little seven-year-old girl fingers couldn't help.

Howard Sr had never laughed as much as the day he was sprayed by the foam of a fire extinguisher of the very first artificial intelligence.

-" Stark Expo. The Stark Expo will see the light again next year and it's going to be such an event! “Howard Sr exclaimed with a big smile. "You're amazing Toni."

-"Thank you, Grandpa, does that mean that this time I'm going to be able to eat all the cookies in the cookie box this time?"

-"Yes."

-"No." Howard intervened looking at his little girl with pride. "Only one more Toni, you know the rules."

The little girl made a contrite pout, but she resumed her work jumping to the next application of her genius. There was no doubt that there were no more cookies in the box, the girl was too greedy, and he knew she was sneaking in at night to snack. Toni was a constantly boiling brain and she preferred to innovate rather than sleep. Howard was fighting to make her sleep perfectly normal.

-"I miss Mommy" Toni had confessed one evening while watching the stars on the roof of the mansion, it was four o'clock in the morning.

Howard suffered every time he heard this sentence. She was very small, she held her knees in her arms, her head on it. Her brown eyes were watery, as she clutched her stuffed animal in her arms. She had abandoned the tutu, which had become too small over time, but it hovered around her the same aura of candor and innocence as before Carol's disappearance.

-"She would be very proud of you." He tenderly entrusted his father by hugging her. "Dum-E is probably one of the most wonderful robots and you are the most wonderful little girl."

-"It doesn't change the fact that she's not there yet."

And Toni cried. Howard hugged her for a long time, gently caressing her back as he laid his head against her brown hair. He comforted her while her frail little body still could hardly bear the grief of losing her mother, it had been almost three years, and it was still terribly painful.

His best friend. Toni's mother. He missed Carol.

And it was even worse for his daughter.

And then one day, Carol came back.

It was a simple message he had received from Maria; he was in his lab at the Starks' mansion: "Carol is back, she's not the same, but she's here at my house."

Howard had taken the first plane to Louisiana, he said nothing to Toni, not wanting to disappoint her. The little girl was thrilled, she thought she could play with her cousin Monica.

It was strange, the excitement was running through his veins. Carol was back.

Toni got out of the car first. It was dark and she paid no attention to the plane in her aunt Maria's garden, let alone the spaceship.

-"Aunt Maria! Monica!” The little girl peeped, shouting towards the front porch of the house.

And the door opened. Maria stood in the frame of the door with Monica, the stars seemed bright high as Goose passed the two Rambeaus to run into Toni's arms. The little girl laughs when the hairy little creature began purring and tenderly licking her face.

-"Howard, Toni." Maria exclaimed with a big smile.

-"Goose! I missed you so much.” The young Toni enthused, fondling the cat with tenderness. "I thought Goose had to stay in Nevada... Is it a surprise because I managed to build Dum-E ? »

-"If I were you, I would keep your distance from this infamous creature." A low and placid voice tonned.

Toni raised his head to see a strange man with a bandage on his eye, he looked a bit like a pirate, but a sympathetic mine hovered over his features. Howard frowned, knowing full well who he was, Nick Fury. Peggy had spoken of him several times as his successor at the head of SHIELD, he was smart, courageous and his instincts rarely deceived him.

And behind him, she appeared.

Captain Carol Danvers. Blond hair, mischievous look, her brown eyes punctuated with gold that their daughter had inherited. She didn't seem to have taken a wrinkle since that famous day when she disappeared into the sky and never came back.

-"Hi Starky, did you miss me?"

-"MOM." Toni exclaimed, letting go of Goose to run into her arms. "Mom! You're back! I knew you were just lost in the stars. »

-"Mom?" Fury was astonished.

Carol kept Toni in her arms for a long time, tears of joy rolling from the eyes of the two women in Howard's life.

The evening was long and strange as Howard had to face through a terrifying contest of circumstance that his best friend was alive, that she had been kidnapped by an alien race that had improved her as a super soldier. She was able to produce a protonic energy thanks to the power she had sucked from the light-speed engine proving that tesseract was a living organism, a conscious energy that had taken the first ship and left its signature.

-"And this cat is an alien." Fury pointed out by pointing athim. "Able to get out... »

-"Tentacles from his mouth! I was right. Goose kept me from falling to the lab all the time when I was smaller.” The girl confirmed. "So you're a Flerken... »

-"I was right, it's a creature of the devil." Howard exclaimed as Carol laughed.

Carol recounted what had happened her last days, how she had come back to earth. Toni seemed to drink her words in awe, her mother had saved an entire alien race, she had become a superhero of unparalleled power and she had prevented monsters from destroying the earth by terrifying them just by standing in front of their fleet.

-"And then I told him that I had nothing to prove to him." Carol finished.

"Because the Danvers and the Starks have nothing to prove to anyone." Toni completed with great ferocity.

-"Exactly, kiddo."

Howard looked at Toni and Carol on the rooftops the next night, looking at the stars. The Skrulls had exchanged technology differences between Earth and other planets, it was strange to have real aliens in front of him, but they were kind and gentle, looking only for a home. Toni had fled a conversation about technology for the first time in her life, preferring to focus on her mom. She had been sprying the thousands of things she had done in her last years.

-"I destroyed the plane I wanted to give you." Howard heard sitting on the porch. "I'm sorry, Mom."

-"It doesn't matter Toni, I know... I know it must have been difficult and I'm sorry I couldn't get home sooner. »

-"You'll come back to me more often."

Howard frowned; it was not a question but an affirmation. What Carol would do, had not yet been mentioned, it was a question strangely hovering around them like a raptor. Toni was the first to mention it.

-"You're going to go back to the stars." The little girl continued, shrugging her shoulders. "I just want you to come and see me more often. You're a hero as Captain America and like the stories you told me and like in Auntie Peggy's stories. I want you to keep saving the universe. »

Howard didn't realize he was crying. It was something that broke his heart, he probably would have preferred little Toni to beg her mother to stay as all the children would have done. He often forgot that she was smarter than the others. She understood things that others could not understand while maintaining the innocence and candor of children.

-« Toni... »

And he heard her sniff at length, her little Toni whining like a sad child. Her morals confronting her broken little girl heart.

-"Please Mommy." The little girl sobbed.

-"Is that what you want baby? I don't want to fly saving the universe if it makes you sad. »

-"That's what I want." The little girl confirmed. "And later when I grow up, I'll do what you do, Mom. I'd become a superhero too. »

-"Oh Toni... Baby... I'll give you something, Fury has one to call me in case of an emergency, but you can call me every time you miss me too much.” Carol promised and she had a little laugh that made her choked tears reason. "And I know you'll make it prettier than just a bean pager."

The next day, the farewell was made. It was as the sunset, Toni looked at the costume in amazement, testing the material between her fingers and marveling at the technology. Carol seemed sad, hugging her daughter for a long time before turning to Howard.

-"Do you feel like you're going on without me Starky?" The young woman gently asked, turning to her best friend. "She's really amazing because of you."

-"I'm trying to make her a woman like you and follow the strategy we’ve put in place Captain."

And they hugged each other. It was strange to say goodbye to her after so little time with her, but it had soothed the hearts to know her alive.

When Carol flew away, the sky shone like a firework of gold and blue. The stars grew in intensity and the vastness of the universe seemed more peaceful. Toni stood for a long time in Maria's garden looking up at the sky, caressing Goose who purred softly. Carol had insisted that the red cat stay with her daughter to protect her. Neither Fury nor Howard had been thrilled, but it seemed that the flerken had always been more than determining to protect little Toni.

-"Is it okay princess?" Howard then tells her, settling down next to her.

-"I miss mom already." The little girl confessed. "I would have liked to show her Dum-E."

-"She's coming back, she promised you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left. It's already written and ended a cycle for Howard. The next story of the series we'll be in a other mood and way more longer and it's named : "How to save the universe, according to Carol Danvers and Loki Odinson". It would be an intergalactic investigation ! 
> 
> I hope you like this chapter. Take care.  
> HappyIsBlue


	9. The end of a cycle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter.

-"You're just an idiot." A nine-year-old Toni dryly retorted.

Toni Stark was held in one of Stark Industries' research and development laboratories. Her little hands on her hips, her bright red backpack held on her shoulders, there were paper sheets, colored pencils and a stuffed pink pig. She was a perfectly normal little girl with the intelligence of the greatest minds in the universe.

The scientist in front of her was fulminating, Norman, who was in his early twenties and whose ambition was matched only by his ego. He was convinced that he would be a genius of genetics and that he would work miracles, but Toni knew that his equations were poorly homogenous and that if he continued like this, there would be little more than an explosion.

Howard thought a field visit would do Toni good, the little girl loved to walk through the stands of the Stark Expo incognito and she need to become social. She had been accompanied by Peggy, Daniel, Monica, and Maria as well as a Goose in top form. Some exhibitors had been irritated about a little girl too smart who always questioned their creation with a condescending look.

To say that Howard Sr had laughed was an understatement. He probably loved the little Stark's sarcasm a bit too much and fed her with cookies and secret night work in the lab. Howard was trying to teach her that she had to be a little less arrogant, she was certainly a genius, a future business leader and she was able to put people twice her size on the ground, but that was no reason for her ego to follow her intelligence. Howard Sr did not help with that.

-"You could blow up a multi-million-dollar lab." The girl justified herself before frowning.

-"And you know a lot about biology, miss?"

-" Danvers. Antonia Danvers.” She introduced herself with a devious smile. "No, but my dad does. I prefer mechanics, but I still know how to see a non-homogeneous equation when I see one. »

-"You're just a little... »

-"Brat? No, I'm just smarter than you. »

That evening, Toni was in the kitchen of the mansion with her father, eating a cookie with milk. It was late and he found his daughter sneaking into the lab. Her fewer hours of sleep worried him and the day she discovered coffee would probably be the worst in history. He prayed that this would never happen and that she would hate the bitter taste of the drink. It shouldn't be difficult; her daughter had an immeasurable love for sweet things and cheeseburgers.

-"You shouldn't call people idiots Toni, just because they make mistakes." Howard said to her, ruffling his hair. "Because in that case, we're all idiots."

-"People don't take me seriously."

-"You're nine years old, it's a little hard to admit that a little girl is smarter than everybody else."

-"No, that's not, they don’t take me seriously because I'm a girl." She growled gently as she violently plunged her cookie into her goblet. "Auntie Peggy and Auntie Maria said it could happen, but it sucks."

-"Then prove them wrong. Wait…For that you don't need me to tell you to do it, you're already calling your grandfather's scientists an idiot. »

Toni had a slight laugh before placing her little head against her father's arm.

His little Toni had grown up a lot, he had no hope that she would become tall, but her intelligence was sharp and fast. She had always maintained her innocence as a child, but she was more aware of the world around her. She understood more and more the world in which she would grow up.

Danger, conflict, sexism, misogyny.

She was already fighting. In her own way, not that she lacks resources.

And then there was Death.

Howard had hoped it would never knock on the Stark family door again for a long time. Providence had decided otherwise. It was less than a week before Toni's birthday, his parents were leaving, they had to run an errand for the SHIELD before their departure to the Bahamas.

The car had never arrived at its destination. They had an accident. They were dead.

Howard had felt his heart break, and he cried, he sat on the floor next to the phone and he cried as if he were eight years old again. It was not fair. In his last nine years he had begun to bond with his father, he remained cold, far but he knew that he loved him and he knew that in his own way he validated his choices. Howard Sr's affections were only intended for Toni, but he knew that through her he apologized for his childhood.

Maria. He had become closer to his mother. She had kept Antonia, supported him after Carol's death, and remained after her mysterious return. He loved his mother with all his heart, cherished the moments when she played the piano, when she had a tender gesture, when she spoke Italian to him.

And they were dead. He wouldn't come back. Their lives had died out suddenly and forever.

It was in tears that Edwin had found him, he had consoled him as if he were still six years old, as if he were a little boy who had not had the recognition of his father when he managed to build his first small engine. He cried for the moments that did not take place, what could have been and what he would have liked to have had. He wept for the moments of happiness with them, his precious little moments which he cherished with all his soul.

-"They're dead...” He whispered as if saying it out loud would make things more real.

-"You'll be fine, Mr. Stark, you'll be fine."

Telling Toni had been the hardest thing in the world. She had cried, had struggled, she had used the device to call her mother.

Carol had been an angel fallen from heaven, both metaphorically and truly. She was there for Toni and for him, supporting them as if she had never left.

Peggy attended the funeral, supported by Daniel and Jarvis. Howard was too affected to really do anything. His grief consumed him as he tried not to be overwhelmed by memories. He broke out several portraits, destroyed part of his father's office, and wrecked antiques.

-"He... He…” He sobbed one day when Carol found him with his fists bloodied in the famous office. "He... For years I thought I was disappointing him. I thought he didn't love me, before Toni was born... he was always cold and calculating, he never told me he loved me... And this last nine years... I should have told him, I never told him either. »

-« Howard… »

-"I know...” He stooped his head. "I know."

The funeral was a difficult ordeal. It was the nineteenth and the press was trying to get in. The ceremony was intimate, his parents might have preferred a worldly event, but no one was strong enough to face false pretences and decorum. Toni wept in her mother's arms, clutching her stuffed pig as if she were another four years old. Edwin and Peggy cried together, their joint talk of the adventures they had had with Howard Sr, how they had met Maria.

Carol said a few words in turn, showing a deep respect for them. Howard did not pronounce any words. He couldn't say anything, so no one forced him. Obadiah Stane was a monster, destroying the human figure that the other guests wanted to give to Howard Stark.

-"I'd like to say something." Toni finally intervening immediately after him, no one was to pay tribute but she stood there in her little black dress.

She gently slit her throat while clutching her stuffed animal.

"Grandma was a genuinely nice woman, she was the one who was with me when mom and dad couldn't. Many people thought she was superficial, but Grandma was a strong woman, she was just more sneaky. She was strong with her convictions and she was always so pretty. She taught me piano and Italian and she took the time to play with me. »

Toni looked at the grave with sad eyes.

-"Grandpa... Many people will remember that it was the great genius Howard Stark. I want to talk to you about my grandfather, he was really nice, and he always gave me lots of cookies when Dad had his back turn. He really looked like a different person with the others though, and it was sad, because Grandpa he really loved his family. He always said that I was Dad's most beautiful creation and that Dad loved me very much and he always told me that my dad was his best creation and that he loved him very much, even if it was too late to tell him. »

Howard cried. This time on Peggy's shoulder, as a child, like the eight-year-old boy she had found in the mansion, so desperate to please. His father loved him. His father, who had never said it, had entrusted it to Toni so that she could tell him in case he left before uttering the famous words.

Howard was still crushed by grief when the notary passed Stark Manor for inheritance. Carol had to leave that evening, always pushing back the date to make sure everyone was okay. She held Toni against her as if she were a featherweight.

-"I bequeath all my wealth, all my fortune, all my property to my son Howard Stark in the hope that he will make the best use of it." The notary continued after settling different other succession problems, particular shares, and other deeply annoying things.

Howard was not surprised to hear the name of Stark Industries, but next door Stane was jubilant. He seemed to think that the company would come back to him.

-"To my dear friend Obadiah Stane, I bequeath my golf clubs, so that he remembers that I was better than him at this game." Howard could have laughed. "And finally, I bequeath my business and all my shares to my little girl, Antonia Carol Stark, may she make the future glorious. By the time of her majority, my son Howard Stark and my partner Obadiah Stane will be at the helm of the company. »

It wasn't a surprise. Toni is the future. This was probably the phrase that Howard Sr uttered most, and it did not matter how senile he was thought to repeat it over and over again, he was convinced that Toni would succeed.

-"I can stay a little longer if you want." Carol gently confided after she said goodbye to Toni. "Howard, I may be Captain Marvel and I may saving the universe, but I would always save my family first, you come first. Maria, Monica, You and Toni. Always. »

-"I'll face it."

-"Your father really thought Toni would be extraordinary."

-"She is, and she will be even more so as she grows up. You know, this planet... it will never be large enough to contain its capabilities. »

-" I'm not even sure the universe is ready for her. I've seen technologies, hundreds of civilizations more advanced than ours, and you know, it's always Toni's intelligence that impresses me the most. Regardless of whether I'm his mother. I've even met gods. »

"Gods?"

"Did you know Ares existed? The god of war and destruction. I met him once, you remember the improvement that Toni absolutely wanted to make on my suit, she knocked down a god. When I told him, she was an eight-year-old girl, a mortal... »

"Don't tell her." Howard laughed "The problem with Toni in the future is probably going to be her ego."

"I know, but if you want me to be honest, I think she knows as we know that her fate is greater than anything we could imagine."

-"And we will be with her along the way."

-"Always."

And Howard smiled for the first time after the death of his parents. He was no longer the little boy scared of the world. He was a man who build the future for a future heroine: his daughter and help an another one: his best friend. He was not a hero, no, he was like his father, the man behind them. And he was never happier to be a Stark after that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story is finished.  
> I hope that you like it. The preface of the univers that I attend to create is over, let's start the story with the first chapter of the next fic. 
> 
> HappyIsBlue


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